'Something different': Portsmouth boss justifies surprise winger experiment - and whether it's here to stay
John Mousinho’s intriguing tactical switch saw Gustavo Caballero and Milli Alli swap roles
John Mousinho has explained the reasoning behind Pompey’s winger experiment - and hasn’t ruled out persisting with it.
In a bid to ramp up the Blues’ attacking effectiveness against Derby, the head coach started Gustavo Caballero and Milli Alli on opposite flanks in a surprise tactical switch.
All of the right-footed Alli’s previous 12 starts had come on the left wing, while Caballero had regularly lined up on the right flank since his arrival from Brazilian club Santos.
However, despite reversing their roles, Pompey slipped to a fourth consecutive Fratton Park defeat after yet again being made to pay for their wastefulness in the final third, particularly out wide.
And Mousinho has lifted the lid on why he swapped over Caballero and Alli.
‘We thought it might be able to simplify his game’
He told The News: ‘Over the past few weeks, Milli has not quite been where he was on the left, so we thought playing him on the right might be able to simplify his game and get the ball onto his right foot to cross.
‘He put in a couple of good crosses, although there were also a couple he could have been a bit more direct with and given us a bit more quality.
‘Gus was a real threat against Swansea on the left, that’s where the disallowed goal that Chappers scored came from.
‘He got in quite a few times again on Monday night, but, looking at it, when we switched Gus to the right in the second half, it didn’t give us enough in terms of taking his man on the outside. That’s one of the reasons why we switched him over to the left.
‘I thought he looked a real threat, but, I suppose this goes for all the team, he didn't quite produce when he got into those good areas.
‘Gus prefers playing on the right, but one of the things we’re trying to drum into him is we want him to be an outside right, getting on the outside of his man and delivering the ball.
‘Naturally, he wants to come inside lots, that’s why we switched him over to the left, to try to get something different out of him. Again, I thought he was a real threat at times without giving us enough quality in the final third.’
Alli’s Pompey form has noticeably dipped of late, having burst into the team after his loan arrival from Luton in January.
He enjoyed his best period against Derby shortly after half-time, before being withdrawn for Adrian Segecic in the 77th minute.
‘We’ll take it game-by-game’
Caballero, on his sixth Blues start, featured for the full 90 minutes, with Colby Bishop and Makenzie Kirk also on the pitch in the final minutes to aim for after being introduced from the bench.
However, Sam Szmodics’ eighth-minute goal proved decisive as the Rams held onto their clean sheet to claim a 1-0 victory.
Mousinho added: ‘We’ll take it game-by-game. Milli can definitely play both sides, he did it a fair bit last year. The reason why we hadn't ever swapped him off that left-hand side is because he had been so effective up until a few weeks ago.
‘We wanted to stimulate something else in Milli, so thought we would swap them over. We obviously don't have any other natural wingers at the moment, so it’s just trying to get a little more out of the pair of them.’