Portsmouth boss blames 'mitigating circumstances' after awful defeat to League One Wycombe
The Blues were without eight players through injury for their friendly defeat at Adams Park
John Mousinho blasted Pompey’s Adams Park performance - but insisted there are ‘mitigating circumstances’ behind the concerning defeat.
The Blues slumped to a humbling 3-1 loss at Wycombe on Saturday, a scoreline which would have been even more emphatic had it not been for Thomas Waddingham’s last-gasp consolation goal.
Certainly the result was thoroughly deserved for the League One side, who were far too comfortable in their victory against a Pompey team which used 21 players.
New striker signing Marko Milovanovic didn’t feature, while new goalkeeper Daniel Bielica was an unused substitute alongside Ben Killip.
However, Marlon Pack, Joseph Bursik, Josh Murphy, Keshi Anderson, Jacob Farrell, Franco Umeh, Mark Kosznovszky and Tayo Singerr again missed out through injury.
And it was those continued absences which Mousinho believes should ‘put a bit of context into the game’.
‘We need to move rapidly on that’
He told The News: ‘I didn’t think it was very good. We did some okay things but, ultimately, it was a pretty good reflection of where we are at the moment.
‘I would much rather be competitive with Wycombe, which I don’t think we were on Saturday. There's a lot to improve upon.
‘A lot, I guess, are mitigating circumstances, particularly some of the players that we are missing and who we need to bring in. But, ultimately, we are two weeks away from going away to West Ham and we need to move rapidly on that.
‘To put a bit of context into the game, we finished with a centre-back at left wing and a triallist left-back at right-wing. That’s just where we are at the moment.
‘We are asking Eoin to do a job out on the right - when we brought him in to be a 10 - and we are clearly short in certain areas
‘We’re playing without a six at the moment as well, it’s not Rocco’s natural position, it's not Odin’s natural position or Swifty’s natural position - and the three of them all played in there.
‘In terms of the players missing and players we want to bring in, we’d like to think that, in two weeks, we would be able to at least have players who can play in their positions.’
Portsmouth 1-0 down after 90 seconds
The Blues fell behind after just 90 seconds, when Ewan Henderson finished a cross from Wycombe’s right to take an early lead.
It remained 1-0 until the interval, then 30 seconds into the second half Arvin Appiah’s poor throw-in gifted the hosts possession and they doubled their advantage through Cauley Woodrow.
It was 3-0 on 73 minutes when Odin Bailey was caught in possession and, ultimately, Micah Olabiyi applied the finish.
Then, on the stroke of full-time, John Swift’s right-wing cross was glanced home by the head of Waddingham for his second goal in two pre-season appearances.
Mousinho added: ‘The entire performance was below par, we went a goal down early, then the second goal came really quickly after half-time.
‘For all the control we had in the game, we also gave away possession really cheaply for the goals. In a pre-season that’s fine, we are encouraging the boys to play a little more and that happens.
‘Off the back of that, we didn’t really create too much, apart from maybe the last 5-10 minutes. There were plenty of aspects of the game I thought we needed to be better at.
‘You can’t read too much into pre-season, but, as the time ticks on and we get closer and closer to the start of the season, we need to be much better than that.’