‘Irrelevant’: Portsmouth boss’ forceful view as drop zone threat hangs over Bristol City showdown
Fratton Park was lifted by victory over Millwall last weekend - now Pompey need more home comforts to potentially avoid falling into the Championship bottom three.
John Mousinho dismissed the spectre of dropping into the Championship relegation places against Bristol City.
And the Blues boss insisted victory at Fratton Park over the play-off chasers would cap a good week for his side, despite their meek 3-0 defeat at Sheffield United.
Six points would represent good week for Pompey boss
Mousinho’s side return to PO4 for the Saturday lunchtime kick-off, after the shocking display at Bramall Lane on Thursday night saw them soundly beaten.
They do so just two points above the Championship drop zone, with Oxford United able to leapfrog the Blues on Friday night as they entertain Ipswich Town.
Just last weekend, Pompey’s win over Millwall saw them open up a seven-point gap to the bottom three with the success injecting impetus and optimism into the season.
The pendulum has swung the other way this week, with back-to-back successes for Chris Wider’s side seeing them reel in Mousinho’s men. Mousinho is adamant he’s not entertaining thoughts about falling into the relegation places, however, with his focus on his side delivering a performance to put their Wednesday night woe to bed.
He said: ‘That (the gap to the bottom three) is irrelevant to me, that is what it is. We’ve got another opportunity to go and win a game - that’s what we need to focus on.
‘The best thing is we’ve got a game at the weekend. If we perform like we can do, I’m sure that we will turn things around.
‘If we do that we would’ve come away from the week with six points - and that’s still a good return.
‘I think we will rue the missed opportunity at Sheffield United and we have a hell of a lot of work to do to take three points at the weekend - but that’s the way football is (things changing quickly on results).’
Pompey boss Mousinho: ‘It’s a very, very strange table’
The competitive nature of the Championship is underlined by the incredibly congested make-up of the table with over a third of the season completed. Just four points separate Millwall in fourth and Leicester in 15th, while plenty of the division’s fancied contenders find themselves in the bottom half.
Mousinho added: ‘It’s a very, very strange table.
‘We’ve got some of the so-called big hitters like Sheffield United, Norwich, West Brom, Southampton and Leicester - none are properly pushing into the top six.
‘So it’s a weird one. We go to Sheffield United away and we’re playing them there with them in the bottom three.
‘Pretty much every other side we play at the moment is in the top six or seven. That’s actually probably a pretty good thing for us at the moment, we tend to play well against those sides.
‘It’s a really competitive league. The one side who blew us away was Birmingham, apart from that one we’ve been in every other game. It’s a tight league and we need to try to pick up as many points as possible.’