'No arrogance': Portsmouth boss still haunted by Plymouth low point as he warns of Leicester City complacency
Blues boss is demanding his in-form team don’t let standards drop ahead of critical relegation clash
Tough-talking John Mousinho has pledged there will be no complacency as Pompey seek to ruthlessly drive home their advantage in the Championship survival scrap.
Relegation rivals Leicester City venture to Fratton Park on Saturday (12.30pm) in a must-win match for both sides.
Following shock successive victories over Middlesbrough and Ipswich, the Blues have dragged themselves four points ahead of the drop zone with four fixtures remaining, thereby rejuvenating once fading hopes of staying up.
Yet Mousinho still remembers March 2025, when Colby Bishop’s goal inflicted a memorable defeat on leaders Leeds, representing a first loss in 17 league matches for Daniel Farke’s men.
Days later, a Plymouth side four points adrift at the foot of the Championship fled Fratton Park with a galling 2-1 triumph as Pompey plummeted back to earth following those giddy heights. It was the same starting XI and the same 20-man squad.
Back to the present day and they now face a Foxes team reeling from a dreadful run of one win in 17 matches, leaving them languishing second from bottom.
And Mousinho is determined there will not be a repeat of Plymouth.
’It doesn't spill over into arrogance or thinking we have cracked it’
He told The News: ‘The demand from me, the expectation, will be exactly the same, if not more.
‘We’ll have to raise our game again because it’s a different beast, a different animal that's coming to Fratton Park, one who is scrapping for survival, which brings a different level of importance to the game for everybody.
‘The only thing we can do is to try to have that mentality where we take a lot of confidence from the game on Tuesday and it doesn't spill over into arrogance or thinking we have cracked it or thinking we have done enough to do the job already.
‘It is far from done, there's a huge amount of work to do. We have to approach it in the same manner we have approached the last four games. Leicester are an extremely good side and I think that will help in this situation.
‘Last season we beat Leeds here and followed it up with a loss to Plymouth at home. Maybe we dropped our levels because, with Plymouth being bottom, we thought we might not have to do the same amount we did against Leeds and the mentality wasn’t quite there.
‘I think we’re in a good spot now, we know Leicester are a top side, there’s no doubting that, full of internationals, full of Premier League players, so we can’t afford to come off it for a second.
‘And that is going to help us going into the game on Saturday.’
Four points ahead of Championship relegation zone
Meanwhile, with Charlton just one point ahead in 18th, Nathan Jones’ men are also in danger of being dragged into the fight, although they travel to bottom club Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday.
Potentially, one win from their final four fixtures could be enough to keep Pompey in the Championship, bringing them up to 51 points.
However, they can ill-afford to hand Leicester a lifeline by allowing the visitors to gain a victory on the south coast this weekend.
‘We just have to focus on ourselves’
Mousinho added: ‘The only thing we can think about is winning as many games as possible. What we’ve got to do is pick up points and try to increase that gap between us and the bottom four.
‘We’ve obviously got a really good chance to do that next week, there are nine points available in those eight days.
‘As I have said consistently, what happens down at the bottom at the back end of the season is completely unpredictable. I don’t think anybody would have seen us take six points off Middlesbrough and Ipswich.
‘When I don’t put a tally on how many points we need, it’s because of things like that, you don’t know what other teams are going to do, there are always going to be some results which pop up out of the ordinary.
‘We just have to focus on ourselves and do as much as we can from there’.