The new boy offering ‘outstanding’ glimpse of potential after dethroning Portsmouth favourite
Derby County proved a tough baptism for the NAC Breda capture, but the €600,000 man has now shown the Fratton faithful his potential.
John Mousinho welcomed a competitive battle between the sticks after Daniel Bielica kickstarted his Pompey career.
The Blues boss lauded the new boy for his ‘outstanding’ efforts on the way to his maiden win at Fratton Park, following his summer arrival.
Mousinho: ‘We’ve got a competitive goalkeeping department’
The battle for the No1 spot has heated up over the past couple of games, with Bielica dethroning established first choice Nicolas Schmid last week.
It was a tough baptism against Derby County last week, with the €600,000 capture from NAC Breda beaten too easily for Sammy Szmodics’ opener.
Mousinho kept faith with the former Górnik Zabrze man against Cardiff on Saturday, with the 27-year-old rewarding his manager with a string of second-half stops - capped by an excellent late save to deny Perry Ng.
Mousinho said: ‘There was a couple of good saves from Daniel.
‘There was one from the edge of the box to his left from Perry Ng, there’s was a more straightforward save in the second half and then one outstanding stop which I felt he got down to brilliantly well - and I didn’t necessarily expect him to save it.
‘He got down very sharply in that moment to save it though and it’s very nice to see we’ve got a competitive goalkeeping department.
‘Daniel has come in and performed very well.
‘Derby was a tough game and he was chucked straight in. We went 1-0 down and then conceded the second shortly after half-time.
‘It wasn’t a great debut from a results perspective, so I was really pleased with Daniel over how he performed.’
Mousinho is hopeful Bielica and the rest of his team-mates can take confidence from their maiden clean sheet of the campaign last weekend.
He acknowledged, however, Pompey did ride their luck at times on the way to the shutout.
Mousinho added: ‘The clean sheet was well deserved for the entire group.
‘They are a nice thing to take away and speak about, but did we get slightly fortunate at times?
‘Just before the second goal Ollie Tanner had a really good chance at the back post, with other sides scoring against us from lesser chances.
‘That’s football and a little bit of luck here and there helps.
‘That said, I felt we fully deserved to win the game and it was nice to get the clean sheet from that mental aspect.’