John Mousinho speaks after Portsmouth's 4-1 win over Coventry

The News, Portsmouth

Portsmouth boss John Mousinho's thoughts on his side's 4-1 win against Coventry.

Transcript

00:00John, what a performance today and what a performance from Callum Lamb.

00:05Yes, if you look at the performance as a whole, I'm really pleased with the second half especially.

00:10I thought we were superb in the second half. The first half was, I suppose it was good in patches, but it was such an open game.

00:16I don't think either head coach would have been particularly pleased at how many chances were being conceded at either end,

00:20how many breaks there were in terms of fast breaks and counter-attacks.

00:25Once we settled down and once we really pinned Coventry in their half, I thought we were excellent.

00:29Really good value for the win.

00:31And then, yes, there's run out of superlatives to talk about Callum Lamb's performance today.

00:36Not just the goals that he scored, but his entire performance, the way that he held the ball up,

00:39the way that he pressed, the way that he caused problems.

00:42It was really pleasing for Callum and he deservedly has gone home with a hat-trick ball plus one.

00:47Have you ever seen a game where a player's got four goals?

00:53I'm trying to think. Yes, once. Grant Holt once scored five for Shrewsbury against Wickham in the EFL Trophy.

01:01But apart from that, I don't think I've ever scored a hat-trick since I've been coaching, unless I've got that wrong.

01:10Plenty of braces, but no hat-tricks and to get four was really special.

01:14Callum Lamb has been excellent this year, really has.

01:18Yes, he's been excellent since the moment he set foot in Portsmouth.

01:23And he was one of our top targets in January.

01:28And we decided to go and get him to get us over the line.

01:31And he did that with the goals that he scored coming into the side.

01:34Unfortunately, he got injured, I think, in that Blackpool game last season.

01:37But he came back and he's come back right at the top of his game.

01:41I think during the back end of pre-season and yes, he's just hit the ground running.

01:45He's not looked back and Callum fully deserves it.

01:48He keeps himself in incredible shape.

01:51You can see that by the physicality, the running, the pressing, the fact he can hold the ball up as well.

01:55And his finishing has always been very, very good.

01:57And it's about, for Callum, making sure he keeps on top of that.

02:00What was it about his game that got him those four goals today, would you say?

02:03Puts himself in the right positions, first of all.

02:05I'm just trying to think of all of the goals.

02:09The first goal, he's probably slightly fortunate because maybe the goalkeeper did better.

02:15You get that when you take that amount of shots and you create that amount of chances for yourself.

02:19You get that. The second goal is just an incredible finish.

02:22He puts himself in between the defender and the man.

02:25I thought he could have gone down in the box, but he doesn't.

02:27Brilliant finish.

02:28I think the third goal is one that we haven't seen a huge amount from Callum.

02:32I don't think we've actually seen him score from a corner for us.

02:35Again, it's nice that having the physicality in the box.

02:39I think he was left unmarked, which sometimes is going to happen.

02:42For him to finish that as well was great.

02:45The fourth, I think, was pure persistence.

02:47It was brilliant down the left-hand side from Conor Ogilvie.

02:50Colby got across the front.

02:52The goalkeeper made a couple of saves, but Callum's there.

02:54He puts himself in the right positions and when he gets a chance, he finishes it.

02:57And you kept it on for a while as well after that.

03:00Yes, I mean, at 4-1, from my perspective, the game's never finished.

03:07It's very, very rare that you feel secure, whether you're up by three or up by four.

03:13What we wanted to do was to make sure we stayed on the pitch because we wanted to win the game.

03:17We're not here for anything other than to win the game.

03:21We brought Callum off to protect him because he's so important for us.

03:25So we can go again next week.

03:27Superb performance.

03:28After the Derby game, you said,

03:30wait a minute, Pompey played really well in the previous six games.

03:33Let's not forget that.

03:34And again, apart from the Derby, another great performance today.

03:38Yes, it's a difficult one.

03:40We don't want to brush Derby under the carpet,

03:42but at the same time we don't want to define what we're going to do over the Christmas period and into January.

03:48So we have to make sure we take a lot of positivity from the way we've been playing, particularly at home.

03:52We've been great at home.

03:54We've probably got to address a couple of areas that we need to get better at away from home.

03:58That's absolutely fine.

03:59We've got two away games now coming up.

04:01We'll have to do that.

04:02Yes, we definitely have to do that.

04:03But I felt a lot different than when I was speaking to you.

04:07I think I said at the time after, say, the Cardiff and Stoke games,

04:10where they came off the back of a couple of decent performances,

04:15because I think it was Sheffield United and QPR before that.

04:17But overall, we haven't quite got into our rhythm yet.

04:20But I do feel that we're in a much better place now.

04:22Obviously, Regan Paul wasn't part of the squad today.

04:24What's the situation there?

04:26Yes, Regan wasn't able to train this week.

04:28So like I said to you on Wednesday, we decided to scan him.

04:32Yesterday, it's going to be two to three weeks for Regan from the date of the injury.

04:36So I think that's ten days.

04:38It's going to be two weeks on Tuesday.

04:40So we are being cautious with it because it's on the side where we had the hamstring graft for the ACL.

04:46But nothing major and hopefully back within ten days to two weeks.

04:53So you're looking at January then?

04:55Yes, early Jan for Regan.

04:58But yes, nothing too bad.

05:00Is it a good job you took cautionary action with him?

05:03Yes, I think so.

05:04Absolutely.

05:05Judging by the fact that he didn't end up managing to train this week,

05:10we wanted to make sure that we got everything right with Regan.

05:14You take into account the 11 months that he had out with his injury history.

05:18And yes, we've got to get him right.

05:20And there's a few lads missing from the squad.

05:22What's the situation with those?

05:24Yes, we've just a few minor niggles and some illness at the moment.

05:28I know everyone's dealing with that.

05:30Elias was ill yesterday, not quite right again.

05:32And one of those things where we don't want to really take the risk and have everybody round the group.

05:37We had Harvey still struggling slightly with a knee injury.

05:41And Abdu, he had a toe problem in training yesterday that should rule him out for today.

05:47Is there anyone else in the squad?

05:49Somebody else as well, come on.

05:51From last week?

05:52Yes.

05:54No one's been left out.

06:00It's just, if not in the squad, it's fitness issues.

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