John Mousinho's frank assessment of Portsmouth scoring struggles - and how he plans to resolve it
Only Sheffield United has scored fewer goals in the Championship than Pompey this season
John Mousinho has pinpointed the reasons behind Pompey’s attacking woes - and revealed how he plans to resolve them.
The injured Adrian Segecic has netted three of those, while the normally reliable Colby Bishop and Conor Chaplin have mustered just one between them.
On the flipside, Pompey have conceded an admirable 13 goals in their 12 Championship fixtures as they face a tricky trip to Birmingham on Saturday.
And Mousinho and his staff are plotting to put an end to their concerning scoring struggles.
Portsmouth boss: We’re not going to hide from it
He told The News: ‘We have not scored enough goals and we’re not going to hide away from that.
‘We’ve definitely flipped it on the head from where we were 12 months ago where all our injuries were concentrated in one area with centre-back. Also, this time last year we’d shipped 26 goals and had the worst defensive record in the league.
‘We have a decent-enough defensive record this year, top nine, having conceded 13 in 12 games - and we’re looking fairly solid - but we just haven’t scored anywhere near enough.
‘It’s the attacking players where we’ve had the majority of the injuries, with Josh Murphy, Harvey Blair, Callum Lang, Franco Umeh and Thomas Waddingham. We need to learn to cope with that a bit better and learn to create chances and opportunities another way.
‘So far we have done okay in patches, but not well enough in other games and, ultimately, have fallen short and need to improve as an attacking force.
‘I don’t think you can blame it on Murph not being available because we’ve scored when he hasn’t been in the side. There are going to be times when he isn’t going to be available.
‘I’ve looked at us as an attacking threat in other games and we have looked likely to score, other times we haven’t.
‘It’s much more of a case of Josh definitely adds a dynamic to us and makes us better as a footballing team, but if we haven’t got him, we have to find ways to win games.’
Injury boost for Blues
At least the Blues are boosted by the return of Murphy for their St Andrew’s trip, having made his comeback as a substitute against Stoke last weekend.
Blair yesterday returned to training following a hamstring injury, although Lang, Umeh and Waddingham remain in the treatment room.
‘There’s a combination of everything’
Mousinho added: ‘It’s not just what we do at the top end of the pitch by the way, it’s how we take care of the ball and turnover. At times, we haven’t given ourselves enough of a chance to actually build any momentum or any attacks.
‘There’s a combination of everything. If we’re more creative with some of the opportunities and some of the areas we get ourselves into rather than sending the ball into the box or giving the ball away cheaply, then we definitely look a different side.
‘It’s about how we build from the back, about how we put the ball into the box at the top end of the pitch, it’s about how we finish, it’s what we do in the middle third as well.
‘We have to improve in absolutely everything we do.’