Portsmouth boss’ Southampton Spygate admission after rival's guilty plea to watching Middlesbrough, Ipswich Town and Oxford United sessions
Spygate dominated the headlines at the end of last season, with John Mousinho offering an honest view on the ability for rivals to do likewise at their Hilsea training base.
John Mousinho acknowledged it would’ve been easy for Southampton to survey his team’s sessions amid the Spygate scandal.
And the Pompey boss admitted his club’s training ground is still ‘nowhere near’ the level of many of their Championship rivals, despite the improvements made to their Hilsea base.
The Blues fierce foes from along the M27 dominated the headlines at the end of last season, as they were expelled from the play-offs and docked four points next term after admitting spying on Championship rivals Middlesbrough, Ipswich Town and Oxford United.
There’s absolutely no suggestion their conduct extended to watching Mousinho’s side at the Pompey Health & Fitness Club, but Mousinho stated it wouldn’t have proved challenging if Southampton had attempted to do so.
There’s been team leaks in Mousinho’s Fratton tenure with people able to view training from the publicly accessible gym, while nearby houses or positions around the training ground’s perimeter offer other potential chances to do so.
Mousinho said: ‘If you want to find out what we’re doing at this training ground, just come and buy a gym membership! I guarantee you’ll work out what we’re doing on the Saturday!
‘No there’s not (any indication Southampton spied on Pompey), but at our training ground it wouldn’t be difficult.
‘It’s one of those things, the football club sometimes get fans out the back or having a little look at the training session from the houses.’
Huge strides have been made at Pompey’s Hilsea base, since arriving there in 2014 during the club’s period of community ownership.
A new medical room, gym, analyst suite and common room are among some of more recent developments, along with pitches being upgraded.
Mousinho is realistic about where things now stand, however, with the training ground still a long way off some of Pompey’s rivals.
He added: ‘People have done a lot of work to try to make it better, we’ve done a lot of work with the gym as well.
‘It’s one thing we’re always trying to push here. My response is when I came back here in mid-May to the training ground we started to talk about improvements we’re trying to make.
‘We’re in a privileged position now compared to where we were. We don’t train at Eastleigh or whatever park is available to us, which is where we’ve been.
‘Yes, the standard of the Championship is what we need. We’re nowhere near some Championship clubs and we’re pushing to get there, though we’re better than some others.
‘It’s just all about constantly pushing the standards until one day we get there.’