Pompey v Gillingham: John Mousinho's pre-match verdict

The News, Portsmouth

Pompey head coach John Mousinho talks to The News ahead of Gillingham's visit to Fratton Park in the EFL Trophy

Transcript

00:00 So John, it's the EFL trophy against Gillingham on Tuesday night. How do you approach this

00:10 match?

00:11 Yeah, same as any other. First of all we want to win the game and we're going to put a side

00:16 out that's extremely competitive. Obviously I think some of these cup games give us a

00:20 chance to change the approach in terms of the team selection but it's only that, it's

00:26 only the fact that we're going to tweak a few things in terms of personnel, the way

00:30 we approach the game and the way we want to play and our desire to win isn't going to

00:33 change and one of the things that's been a hallmark of the cup games so far this season

00:37 is the fact that we're going to go out and try and win them and we're going to put a

00:39 very very strong side in, or at least a side we think is very very strong. So we're going

00:43 to go and compete and we want to advance into the next round of this competition and tomorrow

00:47 night's the first step towards doing that.

00:50 Early October at the moment, you've played a lot of games as a team, a lot of players

00:54 have played a lot of games, will you rotate it completely because of the size of your

00:57 squad as well?

00:58 I don't think we'll have the luxury of rotating it completely this week, mainly because we're

01:02 missing four players on international duty so if you look at the likes of Terry probably

01:06 would have come into the side, Regan Paul, Alex Robertson, Paddy Lane, Paddy's played

01:11 in this competition in the last round as well so we're down four players which means that

01:16 we have slightly fewer players to pick from this week. We've also picked up a couple more

01:20 injuries since then as well so what we're going to do is we're going to rotate in some

01:23 areas but there are going to be a lot of players that feature on Saturday that start the game

01:27 on Tuesday and so there's a couple of reasons we do that. First of all that's the way we

01:32 have to go about the game and second of all it's good that we don't have the game at the

01:36 weekend so we don't have to worry about fitness, we don't have to worry about energy, legs,

01:39 all of those sort of things. It's a nice one for the players to go into knowing that they've

01:43 got a bit of a break after it and they can put everything into it.

01:45 Obviously Cassini-Young is back, is this too early to start him do you feel?

01:51 I think we'll take a decision on that later on this afternoon but everything that we're

01:56 looking at medically tells us we're absolutely fine to start him and he's back and he's available,

02:01 he's had a good week's worth of training behind him so he's certainly an option that we can

02:05 look at for starting tomorrow.

02:07 And Connor Ogilvie?

02:08 Yep, Connor Ogilvie, he's probably a couple of days behind Cassini, he trained today for

02:13 the first time fully so we'll look to get another training session into him tomorrow

02:18 and a couple more this week before we actually look at pushing him for availability. So we've

02:23 got a free week next week in terms of no games and a full training block so we'll get Connor

02:26 back on the grass then and then he'll be back on tension for the Carlisle game.

02:30 And what do you make of Gillingham?

02:32 Yeah, it's a very interesting one at the moment with the change in manager last week and so

02:38 what we have to go off in terms of Gillingham are the performance at the weekend under the

02:42 interim manager where they played well, they beat MK Dons who were a side that were competing

02:45 at that level for promotion and Gillingham have had a really good start to the season

02:50 so slightly different from the usual when you're possibly playing somebody with an interim

02:56 manager. The side have done very well, they're well organised, they've recruited well over

03:01 the summer and we expect a really tough test from them. We don't know what side they're

03:04 going to play, we don't know how they're going to approach the cup, the only thing I would

03:07 say is that in the first round of this competition they went with a strong side so again we expect

03:13 much like us even if they do make changes they'll be very strong.

03:16 Their director of football is Kenny Jackett, a former Pompidou manager, have you come across

03:19 him much?

03:20 Yeah, plenty of times when I played against the Portsmouth teams of the past the one that

03:25 really sticks out is when Kenny was in charge of Portsmouth in the play-off semi-final games

03:30 I think in 2020. I've also played against this Wolves side that I think absolutely blew

03:35 League 1 away and he's had a huge amount of success in his career so yeah, a huge amount

03:40 of respect for Kenny in everything he's done and he had an incredible time here as well

03:46 so yeah, really one of those things that I think is a nice little coincidence for everyone

03:50 at the club and it's no surprise that Gillingham are doing as well as they're doing with him

03:55 at the helm.

03:56 Obviously with it being the EFL trophy, normally kids are put into the squad at all, will that

04:01 be the case for this one?

04:03 I think what we're going to do is again approach it the same way as we approached the last

04:07 couple of cup games, if any of the academy players do make any appearances or appear

04:11 on the bench it's because they deserve to do so so we speak to the academy staff and

04:15 we ask them who have been the best performers. I had the fortune of being able to actually

04:20 watch half of the academy game at the weekend against Northampton so it was nice to actually

04:24 when the fixtures match up and we have a home game and they've got a home game it's nice

04:29 for me to be able to go over and watch how they're doing so yeah, it's all going to be

04:32 based on merit so anybody you see in the squad tomorrow they're in the squad or they're in

04:35 the starting line-up because they deserve to be.

04:37 Well Kobe Mott has won and has played in cup games this season as well, could he be involved?

04:41 Yeah definitely, Kobe's one who has stood out in terms of his academy performances and

04:46 then I think he stood out against Forest Green and played in the two cup games subsequently

04:50 against Peterborough and Fulham and yeah one of those names that we're certainly looking

04:54 to try and push towards the first team but again the only time he will make an appearance

04:57 is if he fully deserves it.

04:59 Thank you.

05:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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