John Mousinho speaks ahead of Pompey's clash with West Brom
Pompey head coach John Mousinho addresses the media ahead of West Brom's visit to Fratton Park.
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00:00How do you reflect on August and are you satisfied with the points that you've seen so far?
00:04Yeah, I think so. I think when we look at the games and we look at the way that they've
00:08panned out, we'd be disappointed. Well, we were disappointed not to win the first three.
00:13Not necessarily deserving to win them, but disappointed to win them because of the positions
00:16that we put ourselves in, particularly at Middlesbrough and Leeds away. And then probably
00:19the game that we did deserve to win or came closest to was that Luton game. So, Sunderland
00:24I thought were just better than us and we can take that on the chin and move on and
00:27that's something that we need to be better at ourselves, but deal with and go from there.
00:30So I think overall, pretty satisfied. We obviously want to kick on and get that first win and
00:34go from there. But yeah, overall, I think with the run of games that we've had, we're
00:38happy with the start.
00:39Have you found the international break beneficial?
00:40Yeah, I think it came at a good time for us. We needed to get a few people back from injury,
00:46get a few bodies back in the squad where we were really thin for the first couple of games
00:50and we named 20-man squads with 19 fit pros and one of the academy lads coming up and
00:56filling the bench. So, I think it's come at a good time. We've also had a few new signings
01:01that have joined late in the window and it's really important for them to bed in and get
01:04used to the group and get used to the way we want to play going into the next few games
01:08as well.
01:09Things aren't getting any easier on Sunday. What, tactically, challenges-wise, do you
01:13expect from West Brom?
01:14I think it's one of those games where we come up with a game plan and we obviously have
01:19a game plan and I think West Brom are still capable of hurting you and most sides in the
01:23league are capable of doing that because they've got good players everywhere. We'll try and
01:29come up with solutions to the issues we think they're going to pose us but they're definitely
01:33a good side. They've got some really good players, decent system, very, very well coached
01:38and they've also got themselves together now for a good period of time and they've built
01:44on the progress that they made last year. So, yeah, we expect a really tough test on
01:47Sunday.
01:48Last season we saw Kovacic and Floyd as the front line striker. Obviously now there are
01:52more options in their area. You've seen Christian Saley and Floyd as a No. 9. You've now got
01:56Marco Mane in, you've seen Yengi, Sorensen as well. Do you have a preferred option currently
02:01or is that position very much up for grabs at the moment?
02:04I think every position is up for grabs but at the minute Christian Saley has come in
02:08as a No. 9 and he's done extremely well. He scored the two goals away at Middlesbrough.
02:13I thought his performance against Luton was probably one of his best in a Portsmouth shirt
02:17and it was difficult against Sunderland. We didn't really get the ball to him a huge
02:20amount and didn't create a huge amount for him so it was one of those games where we
02:23didn't see the best of Christian but I think it's going to be a really good battle between
02:29all of the centre-forwards that we do have in the building. Elias came in and scored
02:32on his debut away at Elland Road. He's been unlucky to find himself out of the picture.
02:36Cassini's coming back from injury and back off international break last week. Christian
02:39currently has been the one that's been playing and to bring Mark in as well. Off the back
02:44of a really successful pre-season and scoring for Brighton in the League Cup I think is
02:48a massive benefit.
02:50There's a lot of excitement around the debut of Abdoulaye Kamara. How is he settling into
02:54the building? Is he very much in contention now at the start?
02:57Yeah he's settled in really well. I think it's a difficult one when you come over from
03:01a foreign country and Abdu's English is something that's improving every day and so it's always
03:08a difficult one all of a sudden coming over from where you may be comfortable and you've
03:12got your feet under the table. Credit to him for actually taking that leap and coming
03:17over to Portsmouth and making sure that he tries to integrate himself as best as he can.
03:21I think he's done that. I think he's really popular amongst the squad and I think he's
03:25trained really, really well over the past couple of weeks. His performance against Sunderland,
03:28we brought him on because of the way that he trained in the week building up to the
03:31Sunderland game and he's definitely put himself in contention.
03:34And finally, things seem to be easing on the injury front. How excited are you to have
03:39those players back?
03:40It's really important for us I think to have a fully fit squad to select from. The squad
03:45and the way we've wanted to build it has been based on having everybody fit or having more
03:49players fit than we've definitely had over the past four weeks and we've had some key
03:52players out. We've had some really important players missing so hopefully getting those
03:56back this weekend will be a really important part of us kicking on.
03:59Cheers.
04:00I've seen a lot of players come back to training this week. What's the situation with Boat?
04:04Boat, we're awaiting a scan result. He felt his knee when he went to take a shot in training
04:09the other day so we're just waiting for the scan results and seeing what that is but hopefully
04:13it's not too bad.
04:14You've given him crutches as well?
04:16Yeah, one of those things when anything to do with a knee usually happens and sometimes
04:20it can be nothing and sometimes it can be bad news so we don't really know yet. We're
04:25going to wait and see.
04:26Obviously too soon to speculate then if you're waiting for results.
04:28Yeah, definitely.
04:29Did he take any shots?
04:31Yeah, just taking a shot in training unfortunately.
04:34So it's a free thing now?
04:36Yeah, nothing we could really do about that but we looked back at the footage and I think
04:42it was on Tuesday when we got back in the building and there was no malice towards it
04:47or any contact or anything like that.
04:49Since you've been here there's been a lot of injuries around the squad on the training
04:54ground but some of them, I suppose like this one, have you done anything about?
04:58I don't know. We'll have a look and we'll review everything and we'll see what the extent
05:02of the injury is and go from there. We always do look back at everything that we do and
05:07try and take a pulse of where we're at, if we're training too hard, if we're doing too
05:11much, if we're doing too little because sometimes that can be a cause of injuries as well and
05:15then go from there really. Yeah, it was one of those things. We thought we picked up a
05:18fair few injuries last year and we've done it so far this season, this year as well but
05:23at the moment hopefully with the boys coming back we'll be in a much better place over
05:26the next couple of weeks and as it stands over the last couple of days we've actually
05:30had many more bodies around training than we'd anticipated.
05:33Has he had you back yet?
05:35Yeah, Cass is back. He came back early because of the red card.
05:38What would you make of him so far this season?
05:41Well he's had a stop-start season I think because of the injury that he picked up and
05:44he looked really sharp in pre-season. Picked up the groin injury, I think he would have
05:48started the game going into Leeds and just got himself back into the mix, played against
05:52Middlesbrough, played against Sunderland. Unfortunately we haven't seen a huge amount
05:55of him over the past week or so because he'd been away with Australia so I think we're
05:59just waiting for Cass to get going this year.
06:01Does he just need match minutes now?
06:03Yeah, I think so.
06:05It's a shame he didn't hopefully would have got that in with Australia.
06:08Yeah well he did get that, he played I think 75 minutes in the first game, unfortunately
06:12got sent off and he didn't end up playing the second game. To be honest that's probably
06:15a benefit for us that he's slightly fresher coming back. The lads that have played 2 90
06:21minutes, Terry Devlin for example who's gone away with Northern Ireland under-21s and played
06:252 matches in 90 minutes, he's probably come back here with a bit more in the legs than
06:30a couple of the other lads. So even though Sammy played 90 the other night, he didn't
06:34the week before. So I don't think it's the end of the world that Cass didn't play both
06:38of those games.
06:39I think we're all just seeing him play regularly in the Championship, at what point is he ready
06:43for a start?
06:44I think he's ready for a start now.
06:46And obviously you've got a few strikers now as well to choose from, how does he rate,
06:54how does he fit in?
06:55It's an interesting one, I think it's a really good battle for that number 9 spot at the
06:58moment and we've got centre-forwards that are really competing and champing at the bit.
07:03Cass as a full international, Mark went away with the Republic of Ireland 21 so we haven't
07:08seen a huge amount of him yet and it's going to be good to get him back in the building,
07:11it's his first day back today and actually have a proper look at him. I think Elias scored
07:16against Leeds in the opening day of the season and then probably, slightly unfortunately
07:20had to play out of position against Middlesbrough but he's also had a decent start to his career
07:24and then Christian, probably the one out of them that we didn't necessarily see as a 9
07:28who slotted in against Luton, did brilliantly well, scored two against Middlesbrough and
07:32so a lot of promise amongst that four.
07:34And obviously you've had a two-week break between matches before West Brom, has that
07:38been beneficial or not?
07:39Yeah, I think it has, it's come at a good time, we've tried to get a few people back
07:43training and back out of the physio room and that's helped, just having that bit of extra
07:48time, a bit of extra time to work on everything. You never want to go into an international
07:52break for the back of a loss and you always want to try and get back on it after you lose
07:56any game and then the preference really is probably to play a game on a Tuesday after
08:01a Saturday but I think we weren't able to do that and the next best thing was to have
08:04that long break.