Pompey boss John Mousinho's Oxford United verdict

The News, Portsmouth

Pompey boss John Mousinho reacts to the 2-2 draw at Oxford United in EFL League One.

Transcript

00:00 It's like you're obviously 2-1 against Oxford this evening. First of all, you started on

00:07 Callum Lamb, which was a sort of debut.

00:11 Yeah, it had a real impact. Callum obviously got the goal, got an assist I think and obviously

00:16 got the centre out. So yeah, really pleased for Callum. The only thing that's marred that

00:20 debut is the fact that he only conceded three points.

00:22 You obviously decided against it at the starting. What was the reason why?

00:27 So I think for the last couple of weeks it's been an interesting period for him at Wigan.

00:32 I think he's known that he's going to be on the way out. He hasn't trained a huge amount

00:37 with the first team, hasn't been involved with the first team in terms of their fixtures.

00:40 So we didn't want to sort of flog him to death and risk any injury early on. We always had

00:44 half an hour in our minds in terms of what he was going to be able to play as a maximum.

00:48 So that was the thought behind not starting him. And also we played really well the other

00:51 day so I thought they were plenty of players that deserved their starting spot.

00:54 When he was introduced you were 1-0 down. Very lacklustre wasn't it? But he sparked

00:59 an example. Fair to say?

01:01 I thought the first half we were really lacklustre. We were much better in the second half. We

01:04 just couldn't quite get anything going in the final thirds. We were just much more positive

01:09 I thought in the way we played after half-time. And by the time we got back into the game

01:13 I thought we were fully deserved. To break the game down I'd say really poor in the first

01:17 half. Really good for 45 minutes in the second half and a bit crazy for six minutes towards

01:22 the end.

01:23 Did he give you what you wanted from him?

01:25 Yeah. We want goals and assists and he did both of those things. We want an attacking

01:28 threat. We're looking for players to put the ball in the back of the net and one of the

01:31 things we haven't been particularly good at doing this season, or probably one of the

01:35 only criticisms we can level at the boys is when we've had opportunities we haven't showed

01:39 that clinical side. I think that was the same over the last two away games. If you look

01:42 at Fleetwood and if you look at Port Vale, we had plenty of chances to kill the game

01:45 off and we didn't do it. So we did that tonight with a couple of good chances. The only thing

01:50 we didn't do is shut up shop at the back and that was what we had done in the last couple

01:55 of weeks and that's what is really disappointing.

01:57 Other than the goal, what particularly pleased you about Cameron's performance?

01:59 I just thought he looked energetic, he looked lively, he looked like he was going to make

02:02 things happen. I know that's a bit of a broad stroke but making things happen is why we

02:06 brought him into the football club.

02:07 And that finish as well?

02:08 Yeah, brilliant finish. Maneuvered a bit of space for himself in the box and really good

02:12 finish back across the goalkeeper.

02:13 And then obviously the agony in the 90th minute.

02:16 Yeah, we just didn't see the game out properly. We had a goal kick, we put it into the channel

02:20 in the right wing and all of a sudden we find ourselves being broken on 3v3 at the back.

02:24 So whatever happened in the final third and landing the shot, that's one thing but we've

02:29 got to be much, much better at making sure that we're locked off and we're organised.

02:32 It just looked like we lacked a bit of organisation there and we didn't really mean business in

02:36 going to win the game. 99% of the time this side this season I've seen them go and see

02:42 those sort of games out and come away with three points.

02:44 And of course Norwich made the save and their players firstly reacted to it as well.

02:48 Yeah, and again that part of it I'm less concerned about. I'm much more concerned about the fact

02:55 that we just shot in the first place. Just with five minutes to go we should be seeing

02:58 these games out. We were the dominant side in the second half. We were the dominant side

03:02 in the first half without really creating much and being a bit too negative with the

03:05 way that we played. But controlled the game, as soon as we decided to be a bit more positive

03:09 and create some chances we did it. But then yeah, just a bit of madness at the end has cost us.

03:14 It got very ragged in the last five minutes of the game.

03:18 Yeah, that's why I break it down into that five, six minutes. It got ragged, got end-to-end.

03:22 We still had opportunities to score and we didn't do it. We had opportunities to make

03:26 their goalkeeper make saves, we didn't quite do that. I was a bit disappointed with that.

03:30 A couple of times I thought we took the easy option when we were going forward, either

03:33 went backwards or flicked the ball on instead of holding it and getting it to players.

03:37 The one time that we got it there, the player in the first half, Abou takes the player on,

03:41 gets the ball in the box, we score. Calum Lang does the same. Whenever we did that we

03:45 looked a threat, whenever we were a bit sloppy we looked exactly that. We looked a bit sloppy

03:48 and lazy.

03:49 Thank you.

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