Pompey boss John Mousinho Stoke City verdict

The News, Portsmouth

Pompey boss John Mousinho gives his verdict after his team's embarrassing Stoke City thrashing.

Transcript

00:00Right now, the game went away from us very, very quickly, five minutes before half-time

00:05and then five minutes after half-time, he sent this mad 10-minute spell, but my overall

00:11thoughts on the game were that we started abysmally. The first 10 minutes, I don't know

00:16what we were thinking. We thought we were going to come here and play in some sort of

00:23way that was just completely foreign to a decent away performance. We gave ourselves

00:27a manner to climb going a goal down, which we deserved to go a goal down. I said to John

00:31it was very, very similar to the Leeds game. I thought it was probably the best thing that

00:34could have happened to us because we decided then we weren't going to be idiotic about

00:38the way we went about the game. We got back into the game, deserved to get back into the

00:41game and then things were fairly even, I think, up until about the 40th minute. The two goals

00:45we conceded before half-time are just abysmal. They're just abysmal. And then in the second

00:51half, Stoke killed the game off very early and I think the biggest positive is it finished

00:566-6.

00:57You've been competing in games every game this season and last season as well, so how

01:01much has that hurt you that they weren't competing today?

01:04Yes, it didn't look like a side that I recognised. It was a side that didn't compete. We ran,

01:10we didn't win challenges, we didn't win headers. There's so many examples I was looking at

01:16from the sidelines where we'd come out of challenges having lost it. We sent it forward,

01:22we'd flick the ball up in the air and win this only second ball. They just ran more

01:25than us. That sort of level of performance is unacceptable. So, take on board anything

01:33that goes wrong technically, tactically. Obviously, the side that we set up as a coaching staff

01:39and I set up and I picked was wrong. I'm not quite sure how we'll dissect that, but there's

01:44a lot of aspects of the game that we can't accept.

01:47How much do you think you're going to learn about your players in times like this as well?

01:51We'll see on Saturday, I think. We've learned a huge amount tonight about a lot of players

01:55and we'll see again on Saturday how they bounce back.

01:57No foul in the squad today, was that just a selection or was he unavailable?

02:01He's unavailable. He slipped in training yesterday and we don't know the extent of it, but he's

02:06just another one of those that's piled up at the moment.

02:08I suppose, if you think of a positive, the one is the Omani goal. So, good for him to

02:12get on the score sheet at least to make it 1-1.

02:14Yes, I mean, we could try and talk about positives tonight though, but I don't think there are

02:17many. So, I think it's best to just dust ourselves off and go again on Saturday.

02:21Supporters didn't stop singing and they were there clapping you. How much does that mean to you?

02:26It means a huge amount. They didn't deserve that tonight. Apologies on my behalf for them

02:32having to come all the way up to see that and pay their money and see that. It's not

02:35on, it's not acceptable and we'll take that fully on board.

02:38What type of journey has that going to be now for you as well?

02:42Yes, it's not going to be nice. I don't know, it's a strange feeling because the game's

02:50gone after Stoke get their sixth. So, the sort of feelings that you have when you can

02:58see the last-minute equaliser or the last-minute goal that we did at Burnley, they're very,

03:04very different to what we have now. I think we have to be very, very practical about the

03:08assessment of the game as we go home. Yes, it's not going to be nice at all but we have

03:13to be very, very quick in terms of rebounding on Saturday. We've just got a huge game that

03:17we need to win.

03:18That is my signal, isn't it? Less than 72 hours, just how crucial now to get this response

03:22on Saturday.

03:23Yes, it's crucial and we have to win the game. There's no two ways about that. We have to

03:25win the game and we can't see what we saw out there today. It's impossible.

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