Pompey boss John Mousinho Shrewsbury Town preview

The News, Portsmouth

Pompey boss John Mousinho give his Shrewsbury Town preview and discusses all the big talking point from Fratton Park.

Transcript

00:00 So John after the result on Monday how do you follow that up at Shrewsbury?

00:04 I think we've got to make sure that we take all the positives that we can from

00:08 Monday night and all the things we need to improve upon. As good a performance

00:11 and result as it was there's always stuff that we can improve upon I think

00:14 that goes for any performance up and down the country at any time so we came

00:19 in on Tuesday we made sure that we did our post match as normal got everything

00:22 out of the system and we've moved straight on to preparing for the game at

00:25 the weekend and that's the most important thing for us now so we need to

00:28 make sure we put in another good performance and against a decent side

00:31 and I think that's the only way we can try and approach the game.

00:34 You set the bar high on Monday as well isn't it? It's just maintain that presumably.

00:38 Yeah we have to maintain that we have to it's gonna be a very very different game

00:41 as well and we need to make sure we're prepared for that always is away from

00:46 home you get the different nuances of how we prepare and things that we do so

00:50 yeah we we have obviously set a really high bar in terms of the way that

00:55 we pressed in particular and what we did off the ball or out of possession work

00:59 those are the things I think is a bare minimum we can always guarantee and we

01:02 can always make sure we approach games making sure we give her everything and

01:04 the quality off the back of it I know the group's got so we have to make sure

01:08 that we do all the difficult things in football first and then move on to

01:11 playing some nice stuff off the back of it. Obviously you're top of the league

01:14 confidence is high anyway does it even get in even higher after beating second

01:19 place like that? I think it should be I do want the lads to be confident I want

01:22 them to approach games with the knowledge that if they if they you know

01:26 get their mindset right and they put everything that we've put into

01:28 practice into games then I think they can be a real threat and we've seen that

01:32 time and time again and that's that's what I ask of the group I never think

01:35 I'm asking too much of the group I don't think I'm asking them to do anything

01:38 that they're not capable of doing and yeah in a way if you put on that sort of

01:41 performance on Monday night then that's the that's the level we need to stay at

01:45 and it's just it's never that simple right it's always difficult there is a

01:50 completely different game of the weekend but there are some certain basics we can

01:53 take from it that we need to produce every week. In terms of injuries to start

01:56 off with Abu Kamara how's he? Abu's fine it was just a knock to the ankle so

02:00 there's no ligament damage absolutely fine and he trained today he'll be fit

02:04 available for selection at the weekend. That's a relief at the time you didn't

02:07 think it was that bad anyway did you? It didn't look that bad if you compared the

02:10 two if you compared Colby's one against Burton Albion where he properly went

02:13 over on his ankle and when he reappeared in the second half he had a boot and

02:16 crutches on that so he left the stadium Abu left the stadium with his

02:19 flip-flops and an ice bag around the ankle because he couldn't put his

02:23 shoe on but that was just because he had the ice bag wrapped around it it was one

02:26 he could put his weight through so we were pretty confident he'd be okay. And

02:29 there's no problem with training with him today either? He was absolutely fine

02:32 yeah if he needed to take an extra day we would have given it to him so he trained

02:36 today and he's fine. And Colby? Colby trained today he'd been back with the

02:40 medical team for the past couple of days and they were really happy with him in

02:44 terms of taking him out on the grass on Tuesday and Wednesday so trained fully

02:48 with us today he's come through it without a problem so fit and available

02:51 for selection for the weekend and not a couple of days ahead of schedule we

02:56 thought three four weeks was the one I think it's gonna be three weeks on

02:59 Tuesday so yeah a few days ahead but no surprise with Colby. Was today's first

03:02 training session back? Today was his first full session yeah. So that's quite

03:06 a conundrum for you after Cassini-Yenge's performance on Monday night? I think a

03:10 really good one to have you've got Cassini with the performance he put in

03:14 against Bolton on top of what he did against Northampton in the second half

03:17 against Burton where I thought he was excellent in both of those games as well

03:20 and scored the goal got his rewards and then Colby coming off the back of a goal

03:26 in the first half against Burton in good form 11 goals in 18 league games 20 goals

03:31 last season I think one of the league's best centre-forwards so yeah a really

03:35 nice selection headache for us to have. It's not often that Colby's started as a sub

03:39 as well for Pompey since he's been here. No he hasn't for me so I think he

03:44 started every single game that he's been available in the league for me so yeah

03:47 one of those that we'll see how that pans out. Is it one or the other can

03:52 they play together? I think they can play together they have played together in

03:55 the league when not started but they've played together in the league and that's

03:58 a definite option for us I think you know Cassini's flexibility

04:01 across the front three gives us that option potentially you know Colby can

04:07 probably play in a couple of different positions whether he plays as a nine or

04:09 a ten as well so yeah there are there are options there for us to explore and

04:12 that's something we have been thinking about this week. Is that a tough choice?

04:15 Yeah it's not the only tough choice that we've got we've got a lot

04:19 of players in positions that are doing really well that haven't featured for

04:22 the last few weeks there's players that have found themselves on the top

04:25 signs out of the squad that don't deserve to be at all and it's going to be a

04:28 really really tough one I think to decide what we do with that one at the

04:32 weekend and that goes across the entire picture we had it on Monday night when

04:36 we left Christian out after two excellent performances that's just

04:39 the sort of thing we're dealing with at the moment. In terms of other injuries

04:43 what's the situation there? Tom Larry and Anssi Scully are back in full training

04:46 which is great they are available for selection at the weekend I think all the

04:50 other injuries nothing's imminent in terms of return everything else is

04:53 progressing nicely if not slowly but they're certainly I think in terms of

04:58 anything this side of the new year we won't see any other players returning.

05:01 How's Connor Ogilvie? Yeah he's good Connor is walking around a

05:07 lot more freely now he's doing a lot of work in the gym over any of the initial

05:11 issues so he's really cracked on to the second part of his rehab so I suspect

05:15 he's still a few weeks away but he is coming along nicely. What sort of time

05:20 frame, January? Yeah probably around

05:23 probably looking about four weeks with Connor we just have to be careful

05:26 because he didn't have a great reaction earlier on in the injury but we're

05:30 making sure that we stay on top of that and make sure that he is

05:33 yeah he's okay and when he is back he's fully fit. In terms of Ronan Curtis is

05:38 he still around the place? No Ronan's not around anymore I think Ronan hasn't

05:41 been here for a couple of weeks. Is his treatment finished here now then? Yeah so

05:46 our commitment to Ronan was that we were getting back and ready to train

05:51 and obviously after Ronan turned the contract down in the

05:55 summer I think the intention was to make sure that we provided him with

05:59 everything that we possibly could to make sure he was back and he was

06:03 fit and obviously I think he's gone to try and find something somewhere

06:06 else and we wish him the best of luck in doing that. Yeah presumably he's

06:10 saying that you could buy us to him as well? Yeah and it's one of those

06:14 it's great to have around the place, credit to him I think if you're

06:18 coming in and you're not necessarily a signed up squad member it can be

06:21 difficult but Ronan conducted himself really well and we like to think that we

06:24 did the same for him in terms of making sure that we gave him access to

06:28 that top-class rehab which we always said he would and Ronan's

06:32 been here for a number of years I think and he'll be sorely missed by

06:35 everybody and he's a really popular figure amongst all the

06:38 frat and faithful so yeah it's not a particularly easy one but yeah one of

06:43 those things it's obviously we saw Ronan's reasons for turning the

06:47 contract down in the summer that's absolutely fine and if he wants to

06:49 explore options elsewhere then there's nothing we could do about that.

06:52 And he's left here fit now then? Yeah that was again we had that

06:56 duty of care to make sure that he was up to scratch in terms of fitness

07:00 and happy with that and if he wasn't we would have offered him

07:04 anything extra that he wanted and yeah it was I think it's been a

07:08 long old come back for Ronan I think he did his ACL back in February and it

07:13 wasn't straightforward so yeah it's a long long time that he's come back

07:17 recovered and we expect or we'd like to see him wherever he ends up fit,

07:22 firing and playing back to the level he's capable of playing off.

07:25 Cheers, thank you.

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