Portmouth boss John Mousinho previewing Millwall clash

The News, Portsmouth

John Mousinho's press conference head of Pompey's Championship encounter with Millwall.

Transcript

00:00So John, did you see the Blackburn pitch? Can you tell us what it was like, please?

00:06Yeah, I went along on Saturday morning, so I got a call when we were just at the back end of having breakfast at the hotel,

00:12saying, can we get down to the pitch, because the referee wants to have a pitch inspection at 10.45.

00:16We ended up postponing it until 11 and myself, John Eustace and the referee went out.

00:20The 95% of the pitch was fine, it was completely playable, there were just patches in the middle of the pitch

00:26that had accumulated pretty significant rainwater on it, and there were puddles growing,

00:34the ball wasn't bouncing, the ball wasn't rolling.

00:36And the issue was that that was only going to get worse until then in kick-off.

00:41So from the sidelines, the pitch looked fine, but when you got on it, it was really heavy and the water really had accumulated.

00:46And I think there were multiple factors around the week and around a few noises of the pitch at Ewood Park

00:52that made it one of those that unfortunately had to be called off.

00:55It's relatively rare that a game gets called off for Pompey.

00:59Is that frustrating for yourselves, bearing in mind you prepped for that after so long without a game?

01:04Yeah, massively frustrating. I think it's the first game that's been called off since I've been here.

01:09And yeah, really frustrating. We wanted to play, we were up there, we were ready to play.

01:13We'd obviously travelled on the Friday, we'd done all the preparation for the two weeks prior going into the Blackburn game,

01:18and when you've got two free weeks, we didn't necessarily spend that first week prepping for the Blackburn game,

01:23but certainly the build-up for the second week, we had a lot of time to look at the opposition

01:28and to look at how we were going to play against them. So we felt like we were going into it in a really good spot.

01:32It's just one of those things, unfortunately, that we've not been able to play the game.

01:36We're going to have to rearrange it at some point and go from there.

01:39Obviously, Millwall on Wednesday night, that'll be 18 days since you last played as well.

01:45Yeah, and I think it's one of those where it's hard to know at this moment whether that's going to be a positive,

01:52a negative or just make absolutely no difference. I tend to think it's going to make no difference, really.

01:56I think if you're us, we're sitting here thinking, oh, I wish we'd played at the weekend,

02:01because obviously we wanted to have the game and it gives us a bit of momentum going into Wednesday.

02:06I think if you're Millwall, they're going, oh, aren't they lucky, they've had a weekend's worth of rest

02:10and we've had a tough game at home to Sunderland and then we've got to make the trip down to Portsmouth.

02:15So I think there's many, many different ways of seeing it. I don't think it's going to affect the game at all, to be honest.

02:20I think it's going to be a really good clash, regardless of what's happened previously.

02:26You've won your last home game, obviously, against Preston. How important will Threaten Part B be?

02:32Because you've not got a bad away record overall, have you really?

02:35I think that we played the games, we lost the games against Stoke and Cardiff, so they're there on the record.

02:42But other than that, I think our home form and away form hasn't been too dissimilar.

02:47It was my first win away from home at QPR and we put in some really, really good performances away from home,

02:51not least a couple of those ones against the big boys early on.

02:54So that's one of those things. I think we've got to focus on keeping our away form,

03:00or the away performances as they are, maybe not the form, because the last two games at Hull and Plymouth

03:06I've been really impressed with the performance levels.

03:08So we've got to keep going with the away performance, but probably got to step everything up at home

03:12and make sure that we're much better than we have been.

03:15And I was really pleased with what we did at Preston.

03:17But I think prior to that, there's been a bit more that we haven't necessarily left out there.

03:23I think there's much more to come from us at home.

03:25And when we get Threaten Part going, it's an incredibly intimidating atmosphere, I think, to players as an away player.

03:31I think it's an amazing backing that we have as home players and as home staff.

03:37And when we get things going and when we give the fans something to cheer about,

03:40as we did do against Preston, it's a really brilliant place to play.

03:43And I think we need to pick up more points.

03:45What aspects of your home performances need to improve then?

03:48I think that if you look at the games that we've done well,

03:51so I would probably classify, we haven't had a huge amount of games, to be honest, at home over the past few weeks.

03:57But if you look at the two that stand out in my head,

03:59I thought we were really good against Oxford because we put them under pressure early on

04:02and we kept that pressure on and we gave away a sloppy goal.

04:05But I thought we were relentless in the way that we were at Preston.

04:08We played on the front foot throughout.

04:10And the Preston game was very, very similar.

04:12I think we started the game really well.

04:14We were on the front foot. We put Preston under a lot of pressure.

04:17That was probably the one game this season where we've actually got what we deserved

04:20after a decent enough opening spell.

04:22And we didn't come away scratching our heads after that.

04:25That's what we've got to do, I think, better is sustain that pressure that we may build up in certain games

04:31and take advantage of moments as well.

04:33The West Brom game at home, I remember having to sustain pressure for 45 minutes in the first half

04:37and we couldn't put the ball in the back of the net.

04:38And sides like West Brom then go and punish you in the second half.

04:41But we gave ourselves that buffer against Preston,

04:43where even though we did concede a goal quite soon after half-time,

04:46because we had the two-goal lead because of what we'd done in the first half, we were OK.

04:49So I think it's just about sustaining that consistent pressure on opposition's goal

04:53and making sure it's a really tough place to play.

04:56The postponement of the Blackburn game, does that help at all in the injury front?

04:59Nothing on the injury front, no.

05:01It's not going to make an ounce of difference to the squad going into Wednesday.

05:03We've got the same squad to select from.

05:05A few of the injured lads. Jacob Farrell, how's he?

05:09Jacob's alright, he's out on the grass.

05:11He's not a million miles away but he's not returned to full training yet.

05:17So we're still not looking at anything imminent in terms of his return to play.

05:23How frustrating has it been with him?

05:25Because he's barely trained or played since he's been at this football club.

05:28Yeah, really frustrating.

05:29He picked up an injury really early on when he came over and he was out for a while with that.

05:34He came back, he had a good couple of training weeks, played against Sheffield United

05:37and then injured himself in training a couple of days later.

05:39So he's only played one game.

05:42He's been available for a couple more but he wasn't in the squad.

05:44So he's only played one game, hardly trained.

05:46And I think it's always frustrating for any player to get injured,

05:50particularly when you're a new signing at a football club,

05:52looking to come over and really make an impact.

05:54So Jacob will be chomping at the bit to get back and I'm sure he'll be fit and ready to go when he is.

05:59I looked at his stats and he played quite a lot of games in Australia as well.

06:05And also he came off the back of a successful season with him straight over to here.

06:09What's the issue with it? Is it the same injury or is it a recurrence of an old one?

06:13No, it's the same injury that he picked up pre-season.

06:17He's managed to just tweak his MCL again.

06:21So it's the same injury.

06:22One of those things when we look at injuries, we spoke about them extensively I think last week.

06:26And where we look at internally and obviously the eyes externally looking at things,

06:31it's very, very difficult sometimes to pinpoint injuries.

06:33Jacob's injury record coming into the season was very good.

06:36He played a lot of games over the past couple of seasons

06:38and unfortunately he's picked up a couple of back-to-back injuries that kept him out for a long time.

06:43From what you've seen of him so far over here, what can he impact on the team?

06:48I think the only thing we can judge him on is that Sheffield United game

06:52where he grew into the game really well.

06:54I think he ended up coming off the pitch to applaud it from everybody in the stadium

07:00and everybody that watched it.

07:02I think he had probably a tough opening half an hour against Raksaki who was excellent.

07:07I think he was one of the best wingers at this level.

07:08But then Jacob got to grips with that and looked very, very confident as the game went on

07:11and grew into the game really well in the second half.

07:13And probably should have come away from the game having scored the winner from that corner

07:17and possibly picking up Man of the Match in a clean sheet.

07:19So I think a bit more of the same really.

07:22That's all we can judge him on at the moment.

07:23And if that's anything to go by then, I think we've signed a good player.

07:27Any more injury setbacks at all?

07:29No, everything's as it was going into the game.

07:31So none of the injuries are going to be back and ready to be involved against Millwall

07:36and we've picked up no new injuries.

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