Pompey boss John Mousinho's Wycombe Wanderers verdict

The News, Portsmouth

Pompey boss John Mousinho gives his reaction to his side's dramatic late League One victory over Wycombe Wanderers at Fratton Park.

Transcript

00:00 So Jon, have you caught your breath back after that dramatic win in, 8th minute of Adelaide?

00:07 Yeah, just about I think. I think one of the reasons I've managed to catch my breath quickly

00:13 is because I thought we thoroughly deserved it. If we'd come in at 1-1, having performed

00:19 the way that we did, I would have been maybe not quite as pleased, but I would have certainly

00:23 been as pleased with the performance because I thought we were superb for 90 to 100 minutes

00:27 whatever it was. I thought for a man across the side, there were some really, really good

00:33 performances as well.

00:34 You keep coming back from falling behind and you keep getting these late goals as well.

00:39 Yeah, I think in terms of falling behind, I haven't got a huge issue with the fact that

00:44 we fell behind other than we need to defend the set piece better because we started pretty

00:47 well and I think we dominated the game in the first half. The only criticism I would

00:51 have is of course we didn't defend the set piece well enough, but I didn't think we got

00:55 quite as many people in the box as we needed to and quite as many people in and around

00:59 Colby. I think we were coming towards the ball a bit too much. We tried to address that

01:04 at half-time. So yeah, coming from behind in this instance, I can live with because

01:09 it wasn't because of a poor performance I think in the first half. The late winner,

01:15 it just shows the time that's added on is really important for us. I said that prior

01:20 to the start of the season where I thought this was going to benefit us at Flatton Park

01:23 because sides do come here and they look to kill the game. Time now being added for a

01:28 two-minute injury is now two minutes, which is great. I know that sounds pretty strange,

01:32 but when we spoke to the referees in the summer and they were saying there might be a minute

01:37 and a half stoppage, they only add 45 seconds or a minute. So it's all making a difference

01:41 for us at the moment and thankfully we got the winner in that added time.

01:45 What's it say about your side that you keep coming from behind, you keep scoring in the

01:49 top of each time, you never give up? I think the side have just got a bit of a calmness

01:53 about them at the moment. They know that they're going to get chances in a game, they know

01:55 they're going to create. There's no panic sets in, no panic doesn't set in when we do

02:00 go a goal down. We want to stop doing it, definitely. But I really felt like when we

02:04 went a goal down again today, I thought, 'OK, it's fine, we go again, it happens in football.

02:08 We've got to pick ourselves up.' The most important thing for me is the attitude of

02:13 the players and I think the same goes for the fans. I think we see the attitude is there.

02:18 The attacking intent is there and you get rewarded for that and I think tonight we were

02:23 rewarded for all of those things. Did you see yourself getting a winner at all? I thought

02:28 we were the most likely side in the second half. I actually thought as soon as we scored

02:31 the equaliser we looked very, very threatening for 10-15 minutes and then the game died a

02:35 bit and I thought Wicca managed it very well. They also brought on Dale Taylor up front

02:39 who provided a very, very different threat to Sam Vokes and all of a sudden they span

02:43 the ball in behind a couple of times which caused a few more problems for us. I still

02:54 thought we were on top. The game just died away and there were a few injuries, a few

03:00 incidents, a few substitutions, fouls etc. We were looking at the bench going, 'What

03:09 substitutions do we make here?' We felt we had enough on the pitch to win the game. We

03:13 didn't want to settle for the point. We talked at one point about the physical threat that

03:18 Wickham have bringing on Sean a bit earlier. We wanted to keep going and make sure that

03:23 if and when we did score we were in a good spot. With Oxford winning, if you hadn't

03:28 have got that goal at the end you would have been dropped to second and some of you at

03:31 the death you are still at the top of the league. Yes and that's great. It's a really

03:36 added nice bonus. We can't do anything about other people's results. The one thing we

03:40 can control is our performance. You can't always guarantee that you are going to win

03:43 games but you can control your own performance, you can control the effort, the work rate

03:47 and everything else that you can put in. We did that tonight. Oxford are clearly a very,

03:51 very good side and making things happen in the league. With a lot of the teams that you

03:57 see this year, I think Wickham are an excellent side. I think they are going to compete in

04:00 the top six this year with some really good players. I know I say this every week but

04:04 Wickham were pretty good at the weekend as well. Some of the sides that we have played

04:08 recently, Barnsley, Derby, Peterborough, although the league doesn't seemingly have these Sheffield

04:15 Wednesdays and Inyptches in it, it's got a lot of clubs underneath that can really, really

04:20 compete with each other and I think that's what we are seeing this season. You have beat

04:23 some of these sides in the last few weeks as well. What does that say about your team?

04:26 I think it says that we are most of all starting to believe in ourselves a bit more. If I rewind

04:33 to the beginning of the month, the Peterborough game, I thought we were superb. The first

04:37 half against Derby, I thought we were okay, we were in the game. I asked the players at

04:42 half-time, it sounds a bit corny but to believe in themselves as much as we do as a staff

04:47 because we just think they are superb. One of the big standouts in that first half against

04:53 Derby, Alex Robertson chalking cheese to his second half performance. If you look at what

04:57 he did tonight, that's what we are trying to get into the players. We know you have

05:01 got that ability. Go and play. Show us what you show us in training every day. I think

05:09 the players have started to listen to us, i.e. you are really good players, go and play

05:15 well. It's all seemingly coming together. The most important thing for us is that we

05:19 take a huge amount of that belief but also then go right, we have got a very, very tough

05:22 test again on Saturday. We have got to dust ourselves off, go again and get back at it

05:28 on the training pitch.

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