John Mousinho’s demand for real Portsmouth to stand up and rediscover key missing quality ahead of Bristol City showdown
Pompey return to Fratton Park looking for back-to-back Championship win against Bristol City. There’s a clear message from John Mousinho heading into the PO4 showdown.
John Mousinho has called for Pompey to find their attacking convictions once again as they aim to exorcise their Sheffield United demons.
And the Blues boss has challenged his players to operate with the belief and forward-thinking convictions which buried Millwall last weekend, but were missing in action amid the bleak mid-week capitulation at Sheffield United.
Mousinho’s men return to PO4 tomorrow at the end of three games in eight days, as they look to deliver a victory to prevent them potentially falling into the Championship bottom three.
Eyes were on Pompey’s shocking inability to deal with set-pieces at Bramall Lane, as more terrible defending was central to the team’s downfall.
Yet, it was his side’s inability to create with confidence and make better decisions, which Mousinho detected as a major difference from the Lions success.
Mousinho: ‘More bottle on the ball’
That’s something he is stressing he wants to see in his players, as they go for back-to-back Fratton successes.
Mousinho said: ‘We can re-emphasise some of the messages from Wednesday, but we have to move on quickly, because we’ve got a big game against Bristol City.
‘It’s a difficult one for me to get to grips with at times, because it was the same side we watched perform against Millwall on Saturday, with a two-day turnaround.
‘Physically we were absolutely fine, the physicality was there against Sheffield United.
‘When we had 11 men it didn’t look like they were running all over us. It didn’t look like Sheffield United were more physical, powerful and athletic. I didn’t think it was the case.
‘So it’s better decision making and maybe just a bit more belief.
‘We just need to show a bit more bottle on the ball, in terms of the things we did at the weekend.
‘We were Cruyffing in tight areas (against Millwall), playing it in tight areas, switching it with full width. We stopped doing that, lumped it down the line and then had to defend again.
‘It’s more that mentality that we need to take, when we looked like a good team, into the game.’
Pompey completed the Sheffield United inquest yesterday, with attention now being thrown forward to halting a Bristol City side who’ve started the season positively.
Mousinho’s views on the game on reflection were consistent with his immediate stance in the aftermath of the 3-0 reverse. That provided obvious areas to put right moving forward, with the final ball and decision making in the final third a big focus along with the obvious set-piece deficiencies.
He added: ‘I had clarity at the game and knew what we did well and what he did wrong. So the assessment watching the game back was the same as watching it live.
‘Up until the red card did we press well? I think we pressed really well and they don't really have any of the ball. They were getting really frustrated on the bench because they couldn’t find Riedewald and Peck.
‘Did we defend the long ball well? I thought we defended it pretty well.
‘We weren’t losing second balls relentlessly. We lost too many headers to Bamford, but apart from that I thought we defended well. Those two areas, I thought we looked really solid.
‘We defended the long throw really well, but there was a couple of corners we need to look at (before the first goal), but without there being clear chances.
‘The bigger problem I had was we did all that really well and got into good positions, but we either made poor decisions or the quality wasn’t there in terms of the delivery.
‘We couldn’t recycle the ball and get sustained pressure on Sheffield United’s goal. Every time we got the ball forward it ended up in Michael Cooper’s hands or it would be a goal kick.
‘The build-up to the corner for the red card is a perfect example.
‘Doz (Dozzell) gets out of a situation by the bench and does brilliantly well. He looks like Pele going forward and we create a brilliant opportunity.
‘We cross the ball, it ends up in Michael Cooper’s hands. He then goes long to Andre Brooks and it ends up with the corner that changed the game.
‘That’s a good summary of where we were, it came from us not taking enough care in the final third - but we have to put that to bed now and put it right this weekend.’