Pompey head coach John Mousinho was accused of ‘talking too much’ by Wolves boss Cesar Peixoto following Wednesday’s night’s draw at Molineux

John Mousinho won’t have lost too much sleep following his touchline run-in with Wolves manager Cesar Peixoto on Wednesday night.

That’s the verdict of The News’ Jordan Cross, who has also vehemently defended the Pompey head coach’s reputation for bending the ears of fourth officials during games.

Mousinho was accused of ‘talking too much’ when he went to shake hands with his irate Old Gold counterpart following the Blues’ 1-1 draw at Molineux.

That led to a war of words breaking out on the side of the pitch, with staff and players from both sides also getting involved after the final whistle had been blown.

Afterwards, the Pompey boss diplomatically brushed the whole incident off when he said: ‘It was just handbags, absolutely nothing, it’s just one of those, shake hands and walk off. I didn’t quite understand it, but it’s fine, no worries.’

Yet Cross believes the episode won’t stop Mousinho altering his approach on the touchline.

He claims it’s done for a reason - to help the Blues eek out marginal gains whenever they can in games.

And he believes it’s a tactic that will no doubt endear the boss to the Fratton faithful even more, regardless of the optics outside of PO4.

‘I don't think it necessarily always looks (good),’ admitted Cross in the latest episode of Pompey Talk.

‘It's not a great optics to have someone kind of up and in the fourth official’s ear all the time. But he clearly does it for a reason.

‘There's clearly a belief that you can have some sort of influence on proceedings, otherwise you wouldn't do it.

‘If there is a quarter of a percent gain to be had from doing that, John Mousinho is going to be doing that.

‘And if it runs the risk of him ticking people off, then I'm sure he's not going to be losing too much sleep about it.’

During the match, words were regularly exchanged between both benches as the animosity built up.

It then spilt over when the Wolves bench were unhappy over first-team coach Michael Doyle’s celebration following Terry Devlin’s late equaliser.

Cross added: ‘By the way, the Wolves bench was way worse than Pompey's. They were up every two minutes.

‘I'm not saying Pompey weren't giving it back to them... they were giving it back.

‘There was one person in the staff. Fans wouldn't even know his name.

‘I saw the (Devlin) goal go in and he was just stood there in the technical area. He looked down at the (Wolves) bench and he was smiling at them. (Afterwards) I said: “Mate, you worked that smug smile really well in the wake of that goal”.

‘He just sat there and you thought: ‘they're going to be looking at him. You know they're going to be fuming with that.

‘He's not done anything wrong. But you know he’s got that smug smile down to a T.

‘If they (Pompey) are going to give it, we want to see a bit of that.

‘We want to see a bit of, like, a football team in the image of our supporters. We know what Portsmouth’s about and we know what Portsmouth people value.

‘And if they see some of that, so much the better.’

For your next Pompey read: Storm Austen: Update on Portsmouth’s Championship clash with Millwall