‘I genuinely don’t care’: Portsmouth boss hands Colby Bishop vote of confidence with Birmingham City starting role under microscope
Pompey fans are debating whether Colby Bishop continues at St Andrews amid his Championship barren run. John Mousinho tonight delivers a forceful response.
John Mousinho insisted Colby Bishop retains his support as the striker aims to end his Championship goal drought.
And the Pompey boss has challenged Bishop’s Blues team-mates to share the burden of hitting the back of the net, as his side aim to get back to winning ways at Birmingham City.
Pompey boss’ forceful response over Colby Bishop amid goal drought
The 28-year-old’s continuing place in the starting XI is a talking point ahead of the trip to St Andrews, as he bids to end a nine-game run without hitting the back of the net. It’ also a single goal from 12 Championship outings, with the League One champion deployed in a deeper role behind Makenzie Kirk against Stoke City.
Now Mousinho has to decide how to go against the big-spending new boys in the division, but the Pompey boss is squarely backing the club’s top scorer for the past three seasons.
When asked if his backing for Bishop remains, Mousinho told The News: ‘Absolutely.
‘It’s such a short spell of games relative to his career and relative to his time as a Portsmouth player.
‘All the evidence I’ve seen points to a player who knows how to find the back of the net at this level.
‘His confidence probably isn’t what it was when he scored 20-odd goals or a hat-trick at the end of last season against Norwich - but I don’t think Colby is going to be short of confidence.
‘It’s an area where we’ve changed the service into Colby and it’s something we need to adjust.
‘With Colby, there’s a number of factors but I think it’s making sure he does the basics right.
‘I’m pretty sure a goal will come fairly soon, but for me it’s not about one individual and panicking that our centre-forward hasn’t scored - I genuinely don’t care.
‘I’d love to have our centre-forward score 20 goals, but if they don’t it’s all about what happens behind them, how many goals we score and how we provide from other areas of the pitch. Particularly towards the back of last season we did that very well, where we distributed goals when there was patches of Colby not scoring. We managed to chip in with goals here and there.
‘I put the focus on everyone in the side.’
Pompey crossing quality ‘not good enough’
Much has been made of the impact Josh Murphy’s injury absence has had on the supply lines for Bishop being manned in recent games.
The 231 crosses Pompey have produced this season is the third highest in the division, however, just three short of Preston North End who top that particular table. For Mousinho, that puts a focus on the quality deliveries being produced by his side, along with support in the box for his number nine.
‘I say if there’s a cross into the box and Colby’s in the box on his own, that’s a problem because there’s no chance he’s going to get free.
‘The quality of crosses hasn’t been good enough, we’ve pinpointed that. When we’ve got into good areas we haven’t tested defenders enough or created better opportunities.
‘If we have swung the ball into the box without defenders being set, then I think we can create more in wide areas and shift the ball a bit.
‘Then it’s not just what Colby’s doing in the box, he needs to have some movement around him.
‘We have to have full-backs arriving, 7s and 11s arriving from opposite sides, we have to have attacking midfielders arriving to create issues.
‘We can’t be static in there, I thought we were too static against Stoke as a whole team. We were waiting for something to drop rather than being pro-active.
‘How we deliver the ball into the box and attack it is definitely an area, as a team, where we need to be better.’