'I’ve been far too nice to these players for too long': Furious Portsmouth boss blasts 'abysmal' late defeat at Preston

The Blues boss was incensed over the manner of Stefan Thordarson’s 87th minute winner to secure a 2-1 victory for the hosts.

Pompey appeared destined for a point after Colby Bishop had cancelled out Ryan Porteous’ opener for the Lilywhites.

However, just three minutes later, Sam Greenwood’s ball over the top caused a mix-up between Connor Ogilvie and Nicolas Schmid, allowing Thordarson to finish from a tight angle.

And afterwards, the Blues’ head coach made his feelings known on the late agony.

He told The News: ‘I can sit here and talk about how good the performance was for 85 minutes of the 90 played - which it was - but, ultimately, my focus is what happened after the equaliser.

‘The performance after that was abysmal and I am absolutely furious.

‘I turned around to the bench after about two minutes of getting the equaliser and said we had completely lost our minds.

‘On the pitch at the time we had Murph, Kaide, Mark O’Mahony, Colby, then Cohen breaking from deep. You equalise at 1-1 away from home against Preston, a good Championship side. Take the point, sit in, but still catch them on the counter-attack, so there was every chance we would go and score the winner.

‘But we just went completely off script, started doing the wrong things on the press and the goal is the worst goal we have conceded this season.

‘I have banged on for 38 games and 100 matches since I have been in charge about fouling early, stopping sides from having the opportunity to break on us quickly - but we decided to do otherwise.

‘Sam Greenwood gets the ball on the halfway line, pirouettes, takes out four players and the next thing you know the ball is in the back of the net - and that is 100 per cent our fault.

‘They (Schmid and Ogilvie) are not going to cover themselves in any glory from it, but that's one element of it.

‘The bigger element is I can always deal with sides scoring goals against us, I can deal with losses. I can’t deal with sides scoring against us in losses when the players are doing their own thing and not doing what I have asked.

‘What I said to them afterwards was well justified. I have probably been far too nice to the players for a long time - and if the message isn’t filtering I have got to try it a different way.’

Aside from that crushing finale, Mousinho was satisfied with his team’s display as they attempted to bounce back from their Plymouth disappointment.

Indeed, Preston boss Paul Heckingbottom made four changes at the break in an attempt to improve his side’s poor first-half showing.

Pompey: ‘Shot ourselves in the foot’

Mousinho added: ‘We were really good in the first half, it was a decent-enough away performance, very, very solid, we frustrated Preston, we had the better of the opportunities.

‘Our keeper hasn’t had to make a save, a couple of set-pieces we had to defend. We had some really good opportunities we didn’t take advantage of.

‘Preston obviously had to make four changes at half-time, which changed the game, but I thought we were really comfortable.

‘Then we completely shot ourselves in the foot.’

For your next Pompey read: Neil Allen's Portsmouth player ratings against Preston