'Best display in a Portsmouth shirt': Triumphant Blues boss hails Sunderland man's Norwich impact
Pompey thumped Norwich to boost their relegation hopes - and at the heart of it was Adil Aouchiche’s best display in a Blues shirt ‘by a long way’.
That’s the verdict of John Mousinho, who has praised the Sunderland loanee’s eye-catching Carrow Road display.
The Frenchman had been overlooked for the number 10 role over the previous three matches, with Terry Devlin, Thomas Waddingham and Christian Saydee preferred.
Yet Aouchiche was handed a recall against the Canaries on Good Friday and shone during the subsequent 5-3 victory, assisting Regan Poole’s second-half goal.
And after 11 appearances for Pompey, Mousinho is adamant it represented his finest performance since joining during the final days of the January transfer window.
The Blues’ head coach told The News: ‘It was Adil’s best game for us by a long way, I said it to Jon (Harley) and Ed (Denton) on the bench. I thought he was excellent.
‘He put both bits together. What we’ve seen with Adil is a huge amount of work-rate, which is maybe slightly surprising to some.
‘We knew we were going to get the work-rate, but we’ve got this technical 10 coming in from Sunderland and some from the outside may not have expected that.
‘He hasn’t quite put together both the work-rate and the quality on the ball. Maybe there have been a couple of games, particularly against QPR in the second half - and he did it against Norwich.
‘He showed that quality on the ball, coming out of tight areas, his work-rate was constant, he was dead on his feet at the end. His numbers were through the roof, but he also gave that edge on the ball.
‘Hopefully it will boost his confidence going forward. He’s a confident young lad anyway, he’s been in and out of the side, and we felt it was the right thing to do to bring him back on Friday. I thought he was great.’
‘We have to be very, very wary’
Their next fixture is the visit of Watford (3pm) to Fratton Park on Bank Holiday Monday, when survival can potentially be secured.
And Mousinho is urging his players not to let slip this latest opportunity.
He added: ‘The big message inside the dressing room is every time we’ve looked like we are pulling away or we’ve picked up a decent result like Leeds, then we lost to Plymouth. So we have to be very, very wary of that.
‘Norwich was a good example. We went 4-1 up, took our foot off the gas and gave away a really sloppy goal. We’re just not good enough at the moment to be able to take our foot off the gas.
‘We have to be very, very clinical and ruthless, approach Monday’s game as we did at Norwich and try to win it.
‘If we take care of what we must take care of, then we're going to be absolutely fine.’
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