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Pompey boss John Mousinho Exeter City preview
The News, Portsmouth
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28/12/2023
Pompey boss John Mousinho previews the trip to Exeter and talks about the transfer window and concerns from fans over recent form.
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00:00
The team set the bar so high this season, four points clear of the top of the league
00:03
in the last two games, it sparks a bit of panic among the supporters, how do you see that?
00:08
I mean I don't think there's any panic to be honest, I didn't feel any panic at the
00:13
unboxing day, there's always going to be a few that's, I guess the minority of voices
00:19
that worry about what's happening but I think the message for me is when we, a good example
00:23
when we won at home against Bolton, when we beat Bolton and put ourselves in that position
00:29
we hadn't achieved anything, we hadn't won the league, we hadn't seen Bolton off, we
00:34
hadn't secured anything and then when we lost against Bristol Rovers the complete flip side
00:38
of that, nothing's changed for us, there's no disaster, there's no panic, it's another
00:43
game we haven't won and obviously we want to do better but I think it's really important
00:46
to look at victories and defeats and try and be objective about things and the most important
00:51
thing for us is to make sure that we do take the positives and the negatives from Tuesday
00:55
and roll onto Friday making sure that we correct any of those negatives and amplify all the
01:00
positives.
01:01
I suppose it's really, it's historical, it's happened before, Pompey 2018, 2020 when they
01:06
toppled the league and they don't end up anywhere so that's what the situation, people just
01:10
have a bit of trepidation from history rather than the current team.
01:13
Yeah and I think that's fine and I think that's one for obviously the fan base, being a football
01:18
fan myself I completely get it, being someone who's seen that through the years, the natural
01:24
inclination is to look back at history.
01:25
As far as we're concerned the historical context of it has nothing to do with us, there are
01:30
hardly any players left from those eras, everything's changed around the football club, it's a completely
01:34
different team so naturally of course we understand that that might be coming from people externally
01:40
but as far as we're concerned inside the group we're just making sure we stay level headed
01:44
and like I said when we win games we know we haven't cracked it and when we lose games
01:48
it's not a disaster either.
01:49
Obviously it is disappointing to take one point from the last two matches.
01:52
Yeah we want to win every game and we would have looked at those two games and thought
01:55
we could have taken six points from them.
01:56
The bigger disappointment to me was the Fleetwood game, I didn't think we performed particularly
01:59
well against Fleetwood and I thought we got what we deserved.
02:02
I think on Tuesday I thought it wasn't the case, I thought we performed well and deserved
02:05
at least a point and on balance having looked at everything after the game I thought we
02:09
did deserve to win the game so we obviously need to do more to actually make sure we secure
02:13
those points but yeah plenty of positivity I think going into Friday.
02:17
Obviously we can't see the future but are there little concerning signs for the last
02:20
two games at all?
02:22
No there's always signs in terms of the post-match that we pick up and make sure we try and improve
02:29
upon so when we went through the period of winning four games and not conceding a goal
02:35
we were very very clear on the fact that we still wanted to improve in certain areas and
02:39
that's been the case when we win, lose or draw and again over the last couple of games
02:42
we've looked at the post-match in exactly the same way, reviewed them, made sure that
02:47
we are picking up on everything that needs to be picked up on and I think that's the
02:50
most important way that you try and build a successful team, looking at victories, looking
02:55
at defeats in a game that has such small margins and is such a low scoring game and just striving
03:00
to make sure that the performance is there and more often than not we're sure that we're
03:04
going to pick up results.
03:05
Other than the late goal against Bristol Rovers what else concerns you most of all about that
03:09
performance?
03:10
Nothing really, I'm not concerned about the performance, I thought the performance was
03:13
good, I was much more concerned about Fleetwood to be honest, I didn't think we performed
03:16
particularly well at all in the second half against Fleetwood and I thought we looked
03:19
a bit flat, I didn't think we looked flat at all on Tuesday, I thought we had to deal
03:23
with a difficult away atmosphere and a difficult away side and I thought we dealt with that
03:28
really well and towards the back end of the game I thought we looked likely to score,
03:31
I thought we created more chances, everything we looked at post-game indicated that and
03:36
we didn't put the ball in the back of the net and when Bristol Rovers had their chance
03:39
they showed a bit of composure, squared the ball across the box and ended up putting it
03:43
in from close range and they obviously did that, did it better than us, got the three
03:47
points and there's loads we have to improve upon but in terms of concern that's definitely
03:52
not the emotion we're feeling at the moment.
03:54
In terms of Etixer, how do you approach this match selection wise?
03:57
I think we need to make sure that we are wary of minutes that the lads have put into their
04:01
legs over the last couple of weeks and particularly with the amount of rain that we've had it's
04:05
just been heavy pitches, training pitches, match pitches, all of these sort of things
04:08
we've got to take into account and then ultimately pick on form and pick the side that we think
04:12
is going to win the game so in terms of team selection we'll approach it as we do every
04:15
week making sure that we pick a side that we think is going to go and win and take into
04:21
account all those other factors as well but that's the most important thing for us.
04:25
With injuries there are some positions you can't rotate though, does it make it difficult
04:28
for you?
04:29
I suppose it makes it difficult and easy if that makes any sense because difficult in
04:34
the sense where you can't actually rotate and you can't take players out of that physical
04:38
firing line when they've had so many minutes under the belt but easy because we don't have
04:42
any other choice so we have to play certain players in certain positions and to be honest
04:46
the players that have taken up the mantle when the injuries have been going through
04:52
the camp have performed really well and have been very good value for their places so no
04:56
concern in terms of that, it's always nice to have those options, we want to have two
04:59
players in every position but at the minute with injuries we've obviously picked up and
05:02
we have to make sure that we deal with that and that's going to be a definite theme through
05:06
the last 23 games of the year as well, we've got to make sure we deal with anything that
05:09
goes off the pitch including injuries and get through it and make sure we perform well.
05:14
You mentioned that workload at this time of year, so hectic, will there be many changes
05:19
at all for Exeter?
05:20
I think we're going to have to make sure you get the right balance between freshening things
05:23
up and then keeping a side together that has actually performed well on Tuesday and again
05:27
like I said probably apart from 45 minutes against Fleetwood I thought for the past few
05:32
weeks we've been the dominant side in most games that we've played, I think we've played
05:35
really really well for those four games that we balanced back after Blackpool so we've
05:39
got to make sure we don't chuck the baby out with the bath water and continue on that line
05:44
of progress that we've been continuing on and that's going to make for an interesting
05:48
team selection.
05:49
In terms of injuries what's the situation?
05:52
No new injuries from the weekend, so we've got the same squad to choose from, Connor
05:57
Ogilvie is very very close to returning to training, Tom Lowry is back out on the grass
06:01
today which is really positive and the only one that is a slight negative on the updated
06:07
is Zach Swanson, we spoke about him on Tuesday and he's going to have to go under the knife
06:12
again which is a bit of a blow for us because he's been performing so well and really I
06:17
think when he has been available and has been playing for us this season he's been brilliant
06:21
so we'll have to see how that one pans out but hopefully we can get him back relatively
06:25
soon.
06:26
You previously said that was a minor operation if that happened, is that still the case?
06:30
It is minor, it's just until you actually get in there and open up the area it's difficult
06:36
to actually tell how much repair they need and I think that was the case last year when
06:42
Zach had a very similar operation but on the other side so we're not going to put a timescale
06:46
on it yet, we're going to wait until he has the surgery but it's nothing major, it's no
06:52
big ligament damage, ACL, complete rupture or anything like that so positive on it but
06:56
unfortunately he's got to do it.
06:57
As you say you can't put a timescale on it at all?
07:00
Nothing at the moment, we will once he's had the surgery, we've got no problem doing that.
07:04
Finally in terms of your lone players here at the club, you already said that Andrew's
07:08
going to stay this season, any updates at all on Batkemara and Norwich?
07:12
Nothing from Man City or from Norwich with Robertson and Abu so we expect them to be
07:18
with us for the season.
07:20
Have they told you they'll stay or are you waiting to hear from them?
07:23
No, they've told us they'll stay but we are just very realistic in terms of the fact that
07:27
we know things can change and ultimately the parent clubs have got say in that so particularly
07:32
I think maybe in Abu's case where we could go back in and possibly affect the first team
07:36
if we're being realistic about it, we've got to make sure that that is something that doesn't
07:41
catch us completely off guard if it does happen but we aren't expecting it to happen at all.
07:45
So you'll be waiting for the end of January to be certain?
07:48
Yeah and we've got really good communication and really good dialogue with Norwich and
07:52
we spoke to them really recently, they assured us that they weren't going to recall Abu and
07:55
I think if they do it would have to be extreme circumstances for them and I'm sure we'll
07:59
get plenty of notice.
08:00
And Man City, when did you last speak to them?
08:02
Yeah same, so I spoke to them a couple of weeks ago and you might have seen a bit of
08:07
media out about Alex which was great, really positive and there's absolutely no intention
08:11
from their end to do anything other than keep him with us for the rest of the season which
08:16
is really good.
08:17
As you say though, you can't quite relax him?
08:19
No, you never know, you never know.
08:21
Sides pick up injuries and hopefully the lads will be in sparkling form for us so yeah you
08:26
never know, you've got to make sure that you deal with it as and when it pops its head
08:30
up. Thank you.
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