Pompey boss John Mousinho chats to The News following the Blues' victory over Gillingham in the EFL Trophy
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00:00 How can you describe that second half display for Pompey against Cunningham tonight?
00:08 Honestly, I think to describe the second half performance as almost faultless is pretty
00:13 close to being accurate. I think we were ruthless in front of goal, we created chances, we switched
00:19 the ball well, we kept possession, we pressed from the front really well, we were aggressive
00:23 in how we did that. I think we conceded maybe one chance towards the end just switching
00:28 off defensively and that was probably my only criticism of the second half. Apart from that,
00:31 I thought we were excellent.
00:32 You had such a swagger about you and there were goals everywhere in that team.
00:37 Yes, and that's what we want to achieve from putting the sides out that we put out. We
00:42 come into this competition wanting to be extremely competitive and putting out obviously 11 pros
00:46 like we did tonight and 11 pros that have been vying for spots in the first team as
00:49 well throughout the season. I think, I'm not sure, but I think off the top of my head every
00:55 single one of those players has started a league game apart from Cassini. Obviously,
01:00 he's been injured so it was really pleasing to be able to do that, to put out such a strong
01:04 side and to show the fact that in the second half the players have got the ability to do
01:11 it and the ability to play as well as they've done.
01:14 Your four players were in Interactional Duty, Colby Bishop wasn't there, presumably rested,
01:18 Will Norris wasn't there and you've made six changes.
01:21 Yes, and we've made more changes previously in this competition but I thought that we
01:28 had a few players that needed the minutes, so the likes of Jack Sparks who's been excellent
01:32 in the league side, I thought it was still really important for him to pick up minutes.
01:36 We had players that haven't played a huge amount of football. One of the consistent
01:42 things that I've been trying to knock into the lads is first of all you've got to be
01:45 ready when called upon, you've got to make sure you make my job difficult and our job
01:48 is difficult when we're selecting sides, which I've been really pleased with that because
01:52 we go into the next weekend now thinking we've come off the back of really positive 45 minutes.
01:58 All of those factors combined have left me thinking it's been a good night.
02:01 Does that show you again the strength and depth of this squad?
02:04 Yes, I think so. We know how strong the squad is. We built it this way for a reason and
02:13 the main reason for us is to make sure that when we do have suspensions, injuries, drops
02:17 in form in the league, we've got players that can come in and these cup competitions are
02:20 also really important to the football club. I'm certainly enjoying my time as a pro-portion
02:25 of them. They've always been excellent in this trophy and whatever guys it comes in.
02:29 I know it means a lot to the fans as well. You can see tonight the fact that we had to
02:34 open the frat and then to let fans in tells us everything we need to know, so it was really
02:37 pleasing to reward them as well.
02:38 Colby, was he arrested?
02:39 Yes, Colby was arrested. He's absolutely fine, so nothing to worry about there. Colby trained
02:43 today and I think it was wise for us to leave him out tonight.
02:47 And you still scored the goals?
02:48 Yes, we still got the goals and we know we've got goals on that side. We know that if you
02:53 go through the goal scorers, obviously we know what Cassini has got the potential to
02:58 do, Abid Kamara, Tino, getting on the score sheet there, the more obvious ones. It was
03:02 very nice for O'Reilly to be back in the fold. The goals were very similar to the one he
03:05 scored against Bolton many moons ago it seems like. I'm really happy for all of them and
03:12 for Ben Stevenson, I thought he was one of our better performers in the first half, so
03:15 he really deserved to get on the score sheet, having played so well at the weekend as well.
03:20 The first half display, it was one all at half-time?
03:22 I thought we were really poor and the goal that Gillingham scored didn't change anything
03:27 that we wanted to say at half-time. I thought we didn't quite get many things right, maybe
03:32 apart from scoring from a set-piece. We just didn't seem to get going. We weren't aggressive
03:37 enough in the press when the ball did drop down to us. We didn't play nearly as much
03:41 as we could play. The lucky thing for me I suppose is that I've got the demonstration
03:46 of what happens in the second half when we do things differently. I thought there was
03:50 a real shift in mentality and a shift in mindset. We were a lot more aggressive, we were a lot
03:53 more positive. But yes, that was the only negative of the night, I think, the fact that
03:57 we just didn't start the game well and at half-time we weren't particularly pleased.
04:01 And Angerim coming off at half-time, was that pre-determined?
04:04 That was pre-planned, yes. We asked Tino for 45, it was again part of his progression.
04:08 He played the 45-50 minutes last week or 10 days ago. Sorry, it was last week against
04:15 Wycombe. What we wanted to do was make sure he was fit and firing going into the Carlisle
04:20 game, which we achieved tonight, so we're really happy with him. I thought his performance
04:25 actually was good, he showed some real glimpses as well. The chance that he had before he
04:30 actually scored, he drove with the ball a couple of times, receiving it from Ryan. Overall,
04:34 really happy with him.
04:35 And the goal he scored?
04:36 Yes, the goal he scored, a nice little touch there, overhead kick. We'd have liked him
04:39 to put the chance away that he had just before that. But yes, it's great to get more people
04:45 on the score sheet and for Tino to come through 45 minutes again tonight. The most important
04:49 thing for him is the fitness element of it and we've built him up again, we can keep
04:53 working on that. He puts a hell of a lot of effort into everything that he does and he
04:57 deserves the rewards.
04:58 The type of goal he scored, does that show his quality in his class?
05:02 Yes, if Tino doesn't score overhead kicks, that's not what we've brought him in for.
05:06 We've brought him in for his quality doing everything else. But yes, if he manages to
05:10 score those goals, we know he's got talent in abundance. There's a reason he's been at
05:14 Chelsea for so long and he's been loaned out to the top level in Russia, he's been loaned
05:18 out to Huddersfield in the Championship. I think everybody knows throughout all of the
05:22 age groups, he's one of the most talented players in the country. So it's up to us to
05:28 try and get that out of him.
05:29 Not many would have scored a goal like that, would they, at this level?
05:31 No, not at all. Again, part of it, part of the glimpses that we see of Tino and what
05:36 we want to do is start stringing those performances and stringing those moments together to turn
05:42 him into a player that really competes at this level and then obviously kicks on as
05:46 he goes through the leagues as well.