Blues boss John Mousinho talks to The News after Saturday's goalless draw at Stevenage's Lamex Stadium
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 The John Golas draw at Stevenage, a controversial game, a frustrating game no doubt for yourselves as well.
00:07 Yeah, controversial and frustrating, another game that I thought the events on the pitch were overshadowed by everything that happened off it.
00:14 Really bizarre again, some of the stuff we've seen this season in terms of non-football and contributions to the games.
00:20 Very difficult, I've been in football a long time and there's a lot of stuff that I just haven't seen.
00:25 So, erm, I'm just going to plug that in. Keep going, sorry, keep going.
00:31 Yeah, so, erm, we didn't win the game and it's hard to unpick in the moment I think because of the fact that we,
00:42 there were so many strange things that happened, we need to have a look at the video and just take it objectively and see where we are from there.
00:48 First of all, we'll talk about the red cards, how did you see that situation?
00:52 I thought it was a bit bizarre that both of them got sent off and I spoke to Joe after the game and he said there was absolutely nothing in it.
00:58 He grabbed the guy's leg, he said he didn't really think that the Stevenage player kicked out at him.
01:03 The initial challenge I thought was a poor challenge from the Stevenage player, both players on the floor,
01:08 Abu came over to sort of calm the situation and then the referees decided to send both of them off.
01:12 And I think it was, you can probably tell by the reaction of both players, both a bit shocked in terms of what had happened and they didn't necessarily see it.
01:18 I don't think anyone else did apart from the refereeing unit, so really, really strange one.
01:22 We watched it back there, there's absolutely nothing in it as far as what we can see but we've got the angle from the far side
01:26 so it'll be very interesting to see if there is an angle from the near side to sort of sum up what's gone on.
01:31 So what you've seen from the video, neither player should be sent off?
01:34 No, I don't think anybody would have been surprised, we certainly didn't have any complaints.
01:38 The only reason we sort of appealed in the first place was because of the challenge,
01:43 we thought the challenge wasn't a great one in the first instance and everything seemed to have calmed down.
01:47 And again, speaking to Raf, Raf's got no reason to lie to me, it wouldn't be a problem if he'd done something
01:53 but ultimately he's got to come out and admit it because he knows it's on camera and he says he's done nothing
01:59 and from what I can see, he absolutely hasn't.
02:01 Will you be appealing it?
02:02 I think so, we'll have to obviously take all of the evidence into account
02:07 and I think we usually take the opinion of an ex-referee to see what they say and then go from there.
02:12 But again, from what I've seen, it's worth an appeal.
02:14 How did that affect the game would you say?
02:16 It made it into a strange last half hour I think, we changed formation and we wanted to not go negative in terms of the way we played.
02:25 So we went with Sparks as a wing back and Abu as a wing back trying to keep our attacking players on the pitch
02:29 and yeah, it definitely made it a bit more open.
02:32 Towards the back end of the game I think we were the team that showed the intent to try and win the game
02:37 without really creating too much in terms of chances, we had some really, really good opportunities
02:42 and the game panned out in a lot of ways that we thought it would, very, very tight.
02:47 For 60 minutes having to make sure we don't concede from a long throw, from a set-piece, from a corner.
02:51 When you manage to stay in those games and you go into the last half hour or 40 minutes as it is these days
02:55 you've then got to take advantage of all the good work that you put in before that and unfortunately we didn't.
02:59 You could see people like Kamari who was dead on his feet at the end there couldn't you?
03:03 Yeah and Abu played 90 minutes on Tuesday night in another long game and the emotion of that,
03:08 I thought he was excellent in the first 60 minutes and he provided us with our biggest threat on the far side.
03:13 I think he missed the chance of the game as well, or it was a really good block, sorry I shouldn't say he missed it
03:17 because he didn't, it was a really, really good block. He was a constant threat on the right hand side
03:21 and yeah, just physically one of those things that got to him towards the back end of the game which is fine.
03:25 He's young, first time I think he's really playing these sort of minutes at a competitive level and yeah, really good for him.
03:32 Yeah, disappointment, another draw.
03:34 Yeah, a big thing has been made about this run and we know that it's actually not where our focus is.
03:41 Our focus is on trying to win games and actually it's one of those things where you keep drawing games.
03:48 I'm sure everyone's aware, it's better to try and win a few and if you do lose some then you lose a couple,
03:54 you end up with more points. Rest assured our focus isn't on being unbeaten, our focus is on winning games.
04:00 Definitely know we have to do more to do that but yeah, it's not something where we're sitting here going,
04:04 we just want to remain unbeaten for the sake of it, it's not going to get us anywhere.
04:08 Did you think you deserved to win today at all, or either side deserved to win?
04:11 I thought we did, I thought we showed the intent to try and win the game.
04:14 I thought certainly towards the last 25 minutes we were the side that was playing in the ascendancy,
04:22 created a lot more in the final third. A couple of opportunities I was disappointed with
04:27 and it looked like we turned down shots from where we were, which again we've just got to try and build that pressure,
04:32 sustain that pressure a bit more but certainly on chances created I thought we had the best chance in the first half
04:37 and yeah, we need to do better and try and score goals.
04:40 Anthony Scully was on the squad, what's the situation there?
04:43 Just picked up a slight knee niggle so I think on Friday he wasn't feeling 100% and we've sent him for a scan
04:51 so we're going to have to see what that comes back with. I don't think it's going to be anything serious
04:54 but something that we just need to keep on top of and be aware of with him.
04:59 Was that in training or in the appearance on Tuesday?
05:01 Tuesday night, yeah Tuesday night he just felt it then so just reassessing where that was
05:06 and Anthony really wanted to play through it and wanted to try and do what's best for the team
05:12 but ultimately what's best for the team at the moment is to have a fully fit Anthony
05:14 so we said make sure you get it right and come back firing.
05:17 You've got a game on Tuesday, is he going to be out for that?
05:20 I think most likely again we'll have to wait and see what the scan results are
05:23 I don't think it's going to be a long term one but this might be a week or so for it to settle.
05:28 Thank you.