'Plenty of reasons': Portsmouth boss John Mousinho addresses why he ripped up his team for Ipswich

John Mousinho reflected on ripping up his Pompey team against Ipswich and admitted: We had plenty of reasons.

While injuries, unavailability and form issues led to expectations there would be some alterations to the side for Portman Road in the aftermath of the Sheffield Wednesday debacle, few would have anticipated such widespread changes.

The ruthless Blues boss dropped Ben Killip after just one match deputising for the injured Nicolas Schmid, while, despite being chronically short of fit wingers at present, Florian Bianchini found himself on the bench.

In addition, league ever-present John Swift also found himself out of the team, while Conor Shaughnessy was injured and Conor Chaplin ineligible.

And Mousinho had no qualms implementing such changes for a tough trip to Ipswich which finished in a 2-1 defeat.

‘I thought that was fair’

He told The News: ‘Probably it was a bit down to disappointment from the previous performance, but we also needed to freshen it up.

‘You can't lose in the manner we did against Sheffield Wednesday and not make changes. I thought that was fair. There were plenty of reasons.

‘A few of them were enforced. Conor (Chaplin) not being available, we had to make that change there, Conor Shaughnessy with the injury, John Swift was struggling with a bit of an ankle injury and wasn’t ready to start.

‘So we had those three injuries and then a couple of calls which we made, such as deciding to change the goalkeeper.

‘We didn’t necessarily have the full complement of the squad that we’d like at the moment and that probably showed at times on Saturday, particularly when we’re trying to be much more dynamic in the attacking third.

‘We made those changes, five full league debuts, and just ended up a bit short.’

Five first Championship starts for Pompey

All five introduced into the side made their first Championship starts for the Blues, while, in Josef Bursik’s case, it was his debut.

Named in place of Killip, the former Stoke man is likely to keep his place until Schmid is able to return to the action, potentially in December.

Mark Kosznovszky was named on the right wing, with Mousinho admitting he was out of position, while Le Roux partnered Andre Dozzell in the centre of midfield and was a call many fans had wanted.

There was also a first appearance in six matches for Minhyeok Yang, who previously had a four-game spell as an unused substitute, before an ankle knock ruled him out of Sheffield Wednesday.

Finally there was summer recruit Knight, the obvious replacement for Conor Shaughnessy, with the Irishman expected to miss up to 12 weeks following a hamstring tear which now requires surgery to repair.

Portsmouth boss: He showed some excellent parts to his game

Mousinho added: ‘Overall, considering it was a full debut, coming over from Germany and getting used to the way we play, Josh did well.

‘He showed some excellent parts of his game where he drove into the middle of the park, while produced some very good defending as well.

‘He really tired towards the last 20 minutes of the game, hence we had to bring him off. There is loads more to come from Josh.’

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