Pompey v Millwall: John Mousinho's pre-match press conference

The News, Portsmouth

Pompey boss John Mousinho talks to The News ahead of the Blues' Championship game against Millwall

Transcript

00:00John, obviously the big question I had in this game is the players you rested on Saturday, are they all OK to go against another one?

00:09Yeah, they should be absolutely fine.

00:12We obviously have got to make a few decisions on team selection,

00:15but that was the point of Saturday to make sure that we, first of all,

00:21protected all the players from anything that we needed to protect them from in terms of injuries.

00:24And, yeah, just to rotate the side,

00:27I thought they'd have been tired if they'd played at the weekend.

00:29So, about giving them a few extra days, it should really help.

00:32Obviously, you rested on the starting line, have you still used four of them on Friday?

00:36Yeah, I thought that the important thing when you do that is that if you look at where we were on Wednesday,

00:42so off the back of Wednesday night, we didn't do anything Thursday,

00:45very, very little on Friday in terms of physical preparation.

00:49If the players had then gone, nothing on Saturday, nothing on Sunday,

00:51we didn't do a huge amount today.

00:52I didn't want to have that sort of five-day break without any football.

00:55So I think it was really important to get that spike,

00:58get that physical spike in there.

00:59It was very similar, I think, in the Bristol City game as well,

01:02when even at 3-0, the game was probably gone.

01:05We still wanted to get players on the pitch to make sure that they don't come into the game

01:09if selected on Tuesday and they're completely rusted.

01:12You rotated a couple of times, not that much, but a couple of times.

01:16Do you see that happening again for the rest of the season?

01:18Are there pictures ingested like that from anywhere?

01:21Probably not to the extent that we did it at the weekend.

01:23I think there's certainly plenty of scope for making minor changes here and there,

01:27but I thought that was probably a wholesale change, I think, that we made at the weekend.

01:31Especially off the back of two wins,

01:33you probably wouldn't expect that many changes off the back of two really good wins.

01:36So I don't necessarily foresee that between now and the rest of the season.

01:40When I look at the schedule, we've got that busy period around Easter,

01:43but nothing that we faced so far in January.

01:46It's been unique in terms of what I've seen as a player and a coach.

01:49I think it's almost different when you say that you have the data to gauge a player's fitness

01:55and susceptibility to injury and things like that.

01:58Yeah, we've got all the data and the data is really useful, don't get me wrong.

02:01We use it, I'm not going to say we completely ignore it.

02:03We've also got the eye and I did look at players off the back of that game on Wednesday night

02:07against Stoke and thought, we've got such high output.

02:09And regardless of what the GPS units were telling me,

02:12I knew that the output had been really high.

02:14A couple of the players just looked absolutely knackered,

02:17they were dead on their feet, we'd asked everything of them.

02:19And we didn't necessarily make a raft of changes in terms of subs towards the back end of the Stoke game

02:24because I thought we need to win the game.

02:26We need to make sure we get the points at home.

02:27We need to secure that.

02:28And I didn't think it was worth doing.

02:30I thought it was well worth making sure that we won the game.

02:32So, it was a combination really.

02:34And then we speak to players on the Wednesday, we speak to players again on Thursday,

02:38speak to players again on the Friday to see how they are.

02:40We just take everything into account when we're making those decisions.

02:43And presumably following that data prevents injuries?

02:47Yeah, for the most part.

02:48I mean, it is a guide, I think, but it doesn't necessarily stop you from picking up injuries.

02:55We've seen that this season where we've looked at training load,

02:59we've looked at game load and it still hasn't made a difference

03:01because we still picked up injuries doing very little.

03:04Shox was a really, really good example where when he came back into the squad,

03:08it wasn't like he'd had this massive sort of training week

03:11and then came into the matchday squad and injured himself in the warm-up because of that.

03:16So, some of them are just, you know, unpreventable.

03:18But when there are some red flags in terms of what the data is telling you,

03:21it's worth, first of all, listening to it.

03:24It's then worth speaking to the player.

03:26It's then worth taking what you see on the eye and then going from there.

03:29There's been plenty of times throughout football and sort of throughout my time as a head coach

03:34where players have had a massive output, but you just take a different view on it

03:37because you think they're going to be all right at the weekend.

03:39I thought it was the best thing to do to the rest of those players.

03:41Well, how did Matthews be involved?

03:43If subject to international clearance, yep, he'll be involved tomorrow night.

03:47What's your pathway for him?

03:49You spoke the other day about Thomas Waddingham.

03:51Where do you see Hayden Matthews?

03:53I see Hayden as someone who needs to compete for a spot in the first team very quickly.

03:59Is he ready?

04:00I think so, yeah.

04:02That's why we've brought him over.

04:03There's plenty of parts of his game that we would like to improve.

04:07I think that we need to make sure, again, he's up to scratch with the pace of the game.

04:11That's something I thought with Tommy, we maybe would have taken a bit longer,

04:15but I thought he came on and fitted in really quickly.

04:17But yeah, we expect Hayden to get up to speed really quickly and affect the team this season.

04:23The defeats away from home, some of them heavy.

04:26It puts more pressure, surely, on you guys to win at home now?

04:30Yeah, yeah, it does.

04:33There's no doubt about that.

04:35I think that even if we'd have won the game or if we'd drawn the game at the weekend,

04:40I still think there'd be a massive amount of pressure for us to maximise our home form.

04:44Because in the league, whether you're playing at home or away, sometimes you look at it

04:48and there's always a big fixture coming up and there's always a really good opponent.

04:51So, yeah, there's no hiding away from it.

04:53I think the fact that we haven't picked up anywhere near enough points away from home

04:57has put the pressure on the home form.

04:58And thankfully, at the minute, we're rising to the occasion.

05:01And you're a very different side at home, aren't you?

05:04Yeah, it's one of the things that pleases me and annoys me at the same time.

05:07And I'm sure it does the fans as well.

05:09They're looking at two sort of completely different teams and one that would be completely

05:13unrecognisable from the weekend.

05:16So even players, I think that even if you change a few of the players, as we've done,

05:20I still don't think we should expect to necessarily see what we saw at the weekend.

05:23But that is something that is, again, it's good because we're playing well at home,

05:28but also not good enough because of what's going on away from home.

05:32Obviously, Hayden Wright was announced this morning.

05:35Any more progress on any of the transfers at the moment?

05:38Nothing before tomorrow night.

05:39There's plenty going on.

05:40Things have really started to move.

05:42So I think, yeah, before the end of the week, there should be some more activity.

05:46Are you encouraged about the progress then?

05:48Yeah, I mean, we've done four players so far and I'm really encouraged by that.

05:53The fact that we've got those two permanents over the line,

05:55we've got the two loan deals over the line.

05:58I don't think we've missed out on anyone yet.

06:00That's a real positive.

06:01Certainly, Tommy and Hayden as permanents, we've been keen on for a while

06:06and we wanted to get those through the door.

06:08Isaac and Rob, right at the top of our list in terms of loans.

06:11So, you know, both number one on the list in terms of loans.

06:13So, yeah, really pleased with the business we've done so far.

06:15So really encouraging signs with a bit more to come.

06:18Anyone close coming back from injury at all?

06:21There's no one apart from Connor, who should be available for the squad tomorrow night.

06:25So will he be named in the squad?

06:27I'll take a view on that later on this afternoon,

06:30but I was slightly cautious with it over the weekend.

06:32So I think we're probably ready to push on with it now.

06:36He's had an extra couple of days.

06:37There's no reason why he can't be involved.

06:39If not tomorrow, I suppose Burnley?

06:41Burnley will be the very, very latest.

06:43But I think the sooner we can get him back involved, the better.

06:46As long as there's no risk.

06:47And anyone else at all?

06:48No, no one else at the moment.

06:50Mark trained with us fully today, but not quite ready to get back in the squad.

06:52How is he at the moment?

06:53He's good. He's pleased to be back out there in training.

06:56I think that when you've spent that amount of time on the sidelines

06:59with a couple of injuries, he had the injury when he first came into his ankle

07:03that he picked up on international duty.

07:04And then he picked up that injury at Swansea, which is a long, long time ago now.

07:08I think when we played Swansea, maybe eight or ten weeks, something like that.

07:12So he's been out for a long time.

07:13So I think he's ready to go.

07:15How long is it going to take him to get the speed into the squad, do you feel?

07:19Up to speed? I don't know.

07:21It depends how diligent he's been with his rehab.

07:26I think he's a fit young lad.

07:28Everything that I've seen of Mark so far should tell me that everything

07:31that he's been doing in the medical room and then out on the pitch

07:34doing his rehab will be top draw because he's been at it,

07:37I think, since the moment he came in.

07:39So he should be right back to close to full fitness pretty soon.

07:43He'll need to train for a couple of weeks,

07:44probably before he can really look to get back in the side.

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