Pompey v Derby County: John Mousinho verdict

The News, Portsmouth

Pompey boss John Mousinho gives his verdict on the 2-2 EFL Championship draw with Derby County.

Transcript

00:00Here with Pompey boss John Messina. John, another frantic and breathless afternoon of

00:07Championship Football. Did that one unfold how you were expecting?

00:12Maybe not in the last 20 minutes of the game, but the way that the game went unfolded,

00:16how I was expecting it to unfold. We watched Derby extensively over the past few weeks,

00:20knowing how effective they are, knowing what good form they've been in,

00:23knowing how dangerous they are. I thought we dealt with it really well for periods in the first half.

00:28We had more of the ball, I thought we had some really good chances, obviously the penalty,

00:35there's Christian's chance, Matt is through and he's brought down by Matt Clark. But to be fair,

00:39on the other side, Derby had a couple of chances in the first half as well. So probably on that,

00:43it was an even game. The second half, I thought we came out and we played pretty well. We were on

00:46the front foot there, there wasn't a huge amount of danger posed to our goal apart from set pieces.

00:52And that was my disappointment about consuming the first goal, just the manner in which we did it.

00:56So after that, the game just became a bit frantic and fair play to the lads because we got back into it.

01:02And you found a way to get back into the game twice as well, some character there.

01:05Yeah, massive. I think you could look at this Derby side and how they defended over the past

01:09six or seven weeks and think, right, they've got the lead. And particularly from set pieces,

01:14or particularly from a set piece, they're not going to give that up. But to get back into the game,

01:17the manner that we did was very pleasing.

01:19Rob Atkinson, what can you say about the man? How many times has he trained quite fully?

01:26I'm trying to think. I think Rob trained fully on Tuesday with us. He didn't train on Wednesday.

01:37And then we got him back into the training group on Thursday, just to make sure he'd done enough.

01:40And that's my massive takeaway from today in terms of the character of the group and the character of Rob.

01:46I've been two years out with some serious injuries, some long-term injuries.

01:51Came back in, the big focus for us was to get him through the season injury-free.

01:54We didn't manage to do that because he picked up the car from the QPR.

01:57And it's just one of those where a player alone, there's no need for him to push himself.

02:01There's no need for him to risk his health. But he did it because of the character he is.

02:06He's going back to Bristol City in four games, four games time, you know,

02:11with another year's worth of contract. It's not even as if he's playing for that.

02:14So it just, it tells me everything I need to know about Rob. And to be fair,

02:17I think that character's reflected in the group.

02:19I mean, he gave everything. He looked full-time whistle. He slumped to the ground.

02:22He shattered. You know, the tank was empty there, wasn't it?

02:25Yeah, I mean, he called over about the 87th minute and said,

02:28I can't move anymore. It's not an injury, but I actually can't move.

02:30Every time I move, I cramp up. And then obviously sprinted into the left-hand channel to win the corner.

02:38And on the goal, you know, a big sprint back to celebrate.

02:41Which he said was on the adrenaline of the crowd that kept him going.

02:43But yeah, he couldn't move. That's why we moved him up top.

02:45We moved Colby into the middle of the park. And yeah, effectively, I know it sounds strange

02:50because Rob scored, but effectively playing the last sort of 10 minutes with 10 men.

02:54And the way the results unfolded later on elsewhere,

02:57the gap actually widened to the bottom three, you know, in the final reckoning today.

03:01It's been important, I think, to pick up the point for a number of reasons.

03:04Psychologically, first of all, to keep Derby, obviously, three points away from us.

03:08And with the results, I think, at Cardiff.

03:11So everything is extremely tight down the bottom.

03:13And the most important thing for us is to make sure that we try and pick up a couple of results next weekend.

03:17A first-half penalty at Hawking Point and the double jeopardy rule and the interpretation of that.

03:21What was your take on that?

03:23Yeah, my take was that I knew the referee was going to book Zetterstrom.

03:28When I've looked back on it, I do think it's a red.

03:30I don't think he makes any attempt to play the ball.

03:32The ball's well past him and he takes Matty out.

03:34So I think it's a red, but I'm probably always going to think that.

03:38So even having seen it back, I think I'm pretty feel on that.

03:40I mean, again, that's probably a different game if that happens early on.

03:44Yeah, I think so.

03:44And obviously, it's a different game if we score the penalty as well.

03:46But the way things have been going for us over the past few weeks,

03:50continuing a couple of late goals, not slotting the penalty away.

03:54The most pleasing thing is that we've, first of all, come back from Wednesday night,

03:57which is a massive hammer blow.

03:58And again, we've taken probably three hammer blows today,

04:01missing the penalty and going down twice.

04:02So to come back from that is brilliant.

04:04You kind of indicated there may be changes going into this game and five changes.

04:08What was the thinking behind those?

04:09Well, I thought that we needed freshness off the back of Wednesday night

04:13and off the back of Saturday.

04:14So two trips where we've gone away from home.

04:17Wednesday took it out of the lads.

04:18I thought it really took it out of the lads because of the effort levels put in

04:21and the emotion of losing the game.

04:23And we looked at it on Thursday and ultimately we've lost four out of the last five.

04:27So it doesn't feel like we're in terrible form.

04:29But yeah, we had lost four out of the last five.

04:32And this lad's chomping at the bit to get back in.

04:33So that was the thought process behind those five changes.

04:36Yeah.

04:36What's the position with Alex Monosovic at the moment?

04:41Alex is OK.

04:42The scan shows a calf tear.

04:45He feels good.

04:46So we're going to treat the player and not the scan.

04:49But I don't know what the extent of that's going to be.

04:51We're just going to have to sort of take that day by day.

04:53So, I mean, you know, late on in the season, there's a calf tear.

04:56You think the season's probably going to be over for him.

04:58But we're not ruling that out.

05:01Sorry, we're not ruling that out.

05:02We're not ruling that in.

05:03We're not sure yet.

05:04I thought maybe that was going to be the case.

05:06Having got the scan results back, I spoke to Alex today.

05:08He feels a lot more positive about it.

05:09It was a really, really sort of strange injury.

05:11He said by the time he sort of got onto the bus at Millwall, he could barely walk.

05:16But a couple of days later, it's really settled down.

05:18So, yeah, one of those it's a bit of a stranger.

05:20But it sounds like he wants to be involved.

05:22He's obviously trying to get himself in a position to be a part of him.

05:25Yeah, I think so.

05:25He's obviously going to be disappointed that he's picked up the injury,

05:27having not played a minute for Portsmouth.

05:29But he wants to get himself back in.

05:30Yeah.

05:31And Shox, what's the latest with him?

05:32How's he now?

05:33Yeah, Shox is good.

05:34Shox trained this morning.

05:36We look to reintegrate him for this weekend.

05:40If he gets through everything that we need him to get through.

05:42So we still need to take a couple of bits this week.

05:43But hopefully, look at Friday.

05:45Hopeful for Norwich then?

05:47Yeah, I don't think he'll be able to start.

05:49But you can probably tell from the time on that.

05:52So the time scale with Shox as well.

05:54And his has been a bit worse.

05:55So we're going to have to, we'll probably have to manage him a bit.

05:58And finally, just at the end of a breathless afternoon and your assessments,

06:01you're pretty good at coming out after the white heat of a battle.

06:04What are your comments?

06:05How do you reflect on it?

06:08It's one of the strangest and craziest games that I've been involved in.

06:17At 1-0, you know, I'm thinking, right,

06:21we really have to dig ourselves out of it.

06:23All of a sudden, get back into the game and it's exactly the same at 2-1.

06:26So emotions are sort of all over the place, up and down.

06:30And quite rightly, I'm sure everybody in Fattenham Park felt that today.

06:33And my overriding emotion is relief and the fact I think it's a big point.

06:36I think it's a big point for us.

06:38We didn't want to take a point.

06:40We wanted all three points.

06:41I thought we played like we wanted all three points, to be fair.

06:44Apart from a couple of bits of defending.

06:46But it's a big point, I think.

06:48And we need to take that and we need to build on that next week.

06:51I'll jump.

06:53I'll jump.

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