John Mousinho's verdict following Portsmouth defeat to Plymouth

The News, Portsmouth

Pompey head coach John Mousinho explains the 2-1 defeat to Plymouth.

Transcript

00:00Jon, what's your verdict on today's defeat, please?

00:04Incredibly disappointed, angry and frustrated, I think, with the performance and it's just

00:08an opportunity missed, a really good opportunity missed. There were far too many things that

00:12we didn't get right. It was a different game, a difficult game, but, yes, we didn't manage

00:16to put the performance in that warranted the result.

00:21Inevitably, you'll be compared to the result against Leeds, won't you, today?

00:25Yes, that's fine. I understand that. They're two completely different games, but what it

00:32should have been is one of those where I was thinking after half an hour, right, if we

00:35can't break them down in the first half, that's absolutely fine. We go in at half-time nil-nil,

00:39we make a couple of tweaks, but what we did, we conceded the goal just before half-time,

00:43made it difficult for ourselves and then just right after half-time, doing really, really

00:47poor defending, I thought, for the first goal and we gave it away cheaply for the second

00:51goal. When you do that against a side who can defend the box really well, it's always

00:55going to be difficult.

00:56Was it a case you got up for Leeds but not tonight?

00:59I don't think it was that. I just thought it was, and maybe it does come back to this,

01:05but when it's slightly easier for us to stay on the ball like it was today, we get a bit

01:10sloppy and that then sort of bleeds into our out-of-position work as well. So, if we get

01:17the first goal and where we just don't drop off and we make decisions that we wouldn't

01:21have made on Sunday, I think that comes into it because it's a different game, we're having

01:25more of the ball, we're finding it slightly easier, we've got more time on the ball and

01:28when that happens, you've got to be right on top of yourselves, you've got to make sure

01:31you lock things off at the back because Plymouth came with a really quick front three who we're

01:34going to always break and always cause us problems, but it did creep into our performance

01:39in the first half in particular. We gave the ball away really sloppily for the hardest

01:43chance at the back post, we gave the ball away really sloppily for the long-range effort

01:48and we didn't defend properly for the goal, for the second goal we gave it away as well.

01:51We saw a stat that you had 80% possession, I don't know if that's true but...

01:54Yeah, it felt a bit like that and we've got to find a way, we've got to find a way to

02:00break sides down when that happens and my take is if we can't find a way because that's

02:04not the way that we're used to playing, which is fine, we come away nil-nil, we take the

02:10point and we move on. So, the most disappointing thing I think is conceding the rest of the goals.

02:14You said you were angry and frustrated, what did you say to them at half-time?

02:17Well, it was the fact that we'd let a couple of sloppy bits creep into our game. Again,

02:26because I think we're finding it a bit too easy, we've got a bit too much possession

02:30or more possession than we're used to. So, I was really angry and frustrated with the

02:34fact that we allowed ourselves to do that and we didn't do the basics well enough and

02:38then it was just about making sure that we were patient and we tried to find openings

02:43but when you get two nil down, you lose the ability to be patient and you have to be a

02:47bit more direct and try and get the ball forward a bit more quickly and we didn't really manage

02:52to do that well enough.

02:53Even when you had 11 minutes of time added on, it's 2-1, you sort of thought, right,

02:57against 10 men and yet I don't think you had a shot in that 11 minutes, did you?

03:00No, we started to do the wrong thing. So, we started to give fouls away. The amount

03:06of times we allowed players to kill the game, we gave fouls away. Every time you give a

03:10foul away, quite rightly, we'd do the same, right? We'd kill the game and take a minute

03:14out of it and some of those decisions, the decision-making at that point in the game

03:18just isn't good enough. It needs to be much better.

03:20How can it be better?

03:22Well, we've seen it, right? We've seen how it can be better and we've seen this group

03:26be a lot better than we were tonight and so it's there but as a group, we're not quite

03:34there at the moment. We are a side that's got the capabilities to come and beat Leeds

03:38here in a performance where I think we deserve to do it and that's sandwiched in between

03:43losses against the two top sides in the league.

03:46So, that's what you've got to aspire to then?

03:48We've got to be, if you look at any sides that improve or any of the top sides, I mean

03:54nowhere near a top side, right? Nowhere near that but any sides that want to improve in

03:58the Championship, you have to be consistent, you have to show those levels of consistency,

04:01you have to show those levels of resources and clinicality against any side that we come

04:05up against and if you look at some of the games that I think about recently, we've had

04:10Millwall, Luton and tonight where in different games we haven't managed to do that.

04:16So, it's just a case of getting that consistency. You've had your times over this season?

04:21Yeah, we've had consistency but we haven't necessarily had the mentality to go again

04:27after big wins against big sides and come back in and back that performance up with

04:32a result against some of the sides that I think we should be beating.

04:36And that's the next step, basically?

04:38Yeah, that's the next step. That's what we see all the best sides in the league doing.

04:41They're ruthless and they're clinical.

04:42You say it's the same side, which few would disagree with. Was it tiredness tonight?

04:47No, I don't think it was tiredness at all. I don't think it was tiredness at all.

04:50I don't think it was any fatigue either. They dominated the game, dominated the ball,

04:54so I don't think it was a problem.

04:55And obviously you used your subs and that still didn't really invigorate you that too much, did it?

05:00Yeah, again, I think it would have been a completely different game had we

05:04stayed in the game at nil-nil for longer.

05:07But as soon as we give ourselves that mountain to climb, it just becomes really difficult

05:10when they're sitting with that back five, get deeper and deeper

05:13and they can defend the box really well because it's the centre half that they've got.

05:16And we allowed them that luxury.

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