'Dead on our feet': Portsmouth boss explains reasoning behind resting players for Wolves clash
The Blues have lost one of the last seven Championship matches, lifting them into 13th spot
John Mousinho backed the decision to rotate his Pompey side at Wolves and insisted: We are dead on our feet.
Tuesday night’s trip to Molineux represented a fourth game in 10 days for the Blues amid a gruelling post-international break schedule.
Instead Terry Devlin, Ebou Adams, Rocco Shein and Tyrese Shade were all handed recalls, although, with 10 injuries, he again named two goalkeepers on his bench.
And Mousinho has explained his reasoning for the selection approach.
‘We needed to make the changes to properly freshen things up’
He told The News: ‘We are dead on our feet at the minute as a squad. That was our third out of four away games.
‘Apart from the derby, we have been at a disadvantage physically in three of those four. Against Sheffield United, they had the extra day, Norwich over the week played on the Saturday rather than us playing on the Sunday, and Wolves had an extra day.
‘We needed to make the changes to properly freshen things up. We had lads on Saturday dead on their feet, so we knew we needed the energy to deal with the way Wolves play - and I thought the boys that came in did brilliantly well.
‘We’re trying to move into a position where we are building a squad that, if we make four changes, there's not the drop-off we’ve probably seen in the past couple of years.
‘When we’ve previously made those changes, we have really struggled with the fixture schedule, particularly around Christmas and the New Year games. We’ve always had that difficulty.
‘This is one of the toughest schedules I have seen in football, particularly off the back of a three-week break, which I don’t think has helped, so I suppose it is pleasing to get a point at Wolves because the lads have come in and slotted into the system.
‘But, if you look at the four changes we’ve made, we are bringing in Terry, who is an experienced Championship player now, Ebou has all the experience in the world, and Tyrese, okay this is fairly new to him at this level.
‘We are still really thin in terms of where we are with the squad, but if you look at some of those previous results where we've had to make the changes and we’ve not competed, this is a nice step forward.’
A point from their game in hand keeps the Blues in 13th position, two points adrift of Southampton in the final play-off position after 11 matches.
Crucially, they are also seven points above the relegation zone, having targeted this season as an opportunity to avoid yet another annual battle against the drop in the Championship.
‘Really solid, really positive’
Mousinho added: ‘We would have taken a point before the game and we would have taken a point as the game went on and Wolves were a goal up. Overall, I thought our performance was really solid, really positive.
‘We were excellent in the first half, restricting Wolves to very few chances, I can’t remember Nico having to make a save. The second half was a bit more difficult.
‘When you have the ability to make the changes that Wolves made at half-time, it did change the nature of the game, but we stuck with it, showed a lot of determination, worked our socks off and got back into the game with a bit of quality.’