Pompey boss John Mousinho gives his reaction to the 5-2 Bristol Street Motors Trophy thrashing by AFC Wimbledon at Fratton Park.
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00:00 They've got stuff down here, it must be, I'd leave it.
00:07 So Jon, obviously a disappointing evening for Pompey, how do you assess that match?
00:14 Yeah, I thought we were pretty poor and we deserved to lose the game. We obviously made
00:20 quite a few changes and that seemed to obviously have that negative effect in terms of the
00:24 performance but, you know, it's one of those difficult ones because I came into the game
00:29 thinking we played really well with the side that we'd changed against Fulham, Leighton
00:34 Orient and Gillingham, put in some really, really good performances, especially against
00:37 Leighton Orient with 10 men and couldn't quite get it going tonight for a number of reasons.
00:41 We conceded the first goal and the most disappointing thing I think at that point is that I didn't
00:45 think we reacted particularly well and all of a sudden we found ourselves three goals
00:49 down with the Mountains.
00:50 Understandably, you made changes tonight, didn't you, for this competition?
00:54 Yeah, yeah, we were always going to. We have to make sure that our focus is on league football,
01:01 that's where we ultimately can be judged at the end of the season and we've come off
01:05 the back of four games, three away games, Northampton, Shrewsbury, Burton, the sort
01:11 of emotion here of the Bolton game and the energy that all the lads put in. I thought
01:15 that we needed to change things, we needed a rest and the lads did need a rest, I'm certain
01:19 of that, so I was really glad that I was able to do that with the squad that we've got and
01:23 I just expected a bit more from the squad and from individuals. I even think when they're
01:28 coming in, I give them that it is very difficult to come in from not having a huge amount of
01:33 game time and maybe not being in the squad, not being involved, but I have seen a similar
01:38 side to this in terms of what we put out performed really well and that's probably the most disappointing
01:43 thing.
01:44 Is that down to some of them having a lack of game time and coming into a match and expecting
01:48 to perform, do you feel?
01:49 I think so, I think that can often be the case if you haven't had the game time, if
01:52 you haven't had that match sharpness, but all of the lads pretty much to a man tonight
01:56 have played in the league and they've dropped in and performed really well. When they've
02:00 done that, some have played quite a few games in the league, so it's tough really to use
02:04 that one too much, on top of the fact that AFC made 10 changes as well, so difficult
02:10 really to pin down why we didn't quite have that impetus tonight.
02:13 We've talked often about the strength of the squad, that same strength in the squad didn't
02:18 perform tonight, did they?
02:19 Yeah, and I still think we've got a strong squad, I still think we've got players that
02:22 can come in and compete in a lot of positions and for whatever reason tonight it didn't
02:26 work out, it's not going to be anything that's too drastic in terms of a reaction, we've
02:31 just got to take our medicine tonight. We were beat by a side that were very well organised,
02:34 played well and came here and put five goals past us, so we've got to take it on the chin
02:38 and move on.
02:39 I suppose, those changes, back five changes, in the ref team, in a different position,
02:44 so that's just the liquidity of your team in the league removed, isn't it?
02:47 Yeah, one of the problems, I guess one of the only selection headaches we had coming
02:51 into the game, we spoke about it yesterday, was what we were going to do at centre-half
02:53 and obviously move refs to right-sided centre-half in the first half and that was one, in an
02:59 ideal world, we would like to have not had to do that and obviously with Regan's injury
03:04 at the moment we don't have that luxury and we understand, if we're rolling with four
03:09 centre-halves most of the time that is a really, really fortunate position to be in. We're
03:12 not, we had the three, didn't want to risk Connor Shotman's seat, I thought that would
03:17 be completely pointless considering the position we've got ourselves in. So, yeah, one of those
03:23 things that we didn't quite have that luxury in and obviously towards the back end with
03:26 a really makeshift back three with Denver, Rielly and Harry, that was what we ended the
03:33 game with, absolutely fine, we've got to live with that, we've got to deal with it. I think
03:36 if we want to make those changes we've got to really take on board that that sometimes
03:39 is going to happen.
03:40 How do you think Joe Rafferty did in the centre-half?
03:43 I thought he was absolutely fine to be honest, I thought Joe was one of our better performers
03:45 tonight, really happy with him. I asked him to do that shift, I thought he did it, he
03:50 got on with it, didn't complain at all and I thought he performed well.
03:54 In terms of Ryan Schofield, what do you make of his performance tonight?
03:56 I thought Ryan, without having seen the goals properly back, I thought he was nice and composed
04:03 on the ball. I think Ryan is definitely one of the, well, definitely a really good shot-stopper,
04:08 I've seen it time and time again in training. I'll have to have a look at the goals back
04:12 and see, I think if any goalkeeper comes to these five he's probably going to hope that
04:16 he could have done better but I'm not entirely sure. If you take the free-kick for example,
04:22 it's gone under the wall so I don't think it's anything to do with him. The fifth goal
04:26 is an open goal, it's a tap-in. The bigger issue I have is the fact that we are asking
04:31 our goalkeeper to make saves in the first place, obviously sometimes you have to do
04:35 it but if you look back at the league performances over the past three or four weeks, there aren't
04:39 many times that Will's been called upon.
04:40 What have you made of his time here at Pompom? Because he hasn't played that much has he?
04:43 It must be difficult to be allowed out of the team.
04:45 He's been brilliant, he's a bright spark in the changing room, very, very popular lad,
04:51 straightforward, Yorkshireman and he's great to have around the place. He's been a brilliant
04:55 number two and to be honest I haven't got a bad word to say about him. Again, to come
05:01 in from the cold, not having a huge amount of game time has always been tough.
05:05 If anything happened to Will Norris, would you back Schofield to come in for him?
05:08 Yes, that's why I've got him as a number two. That's something that if you dealt that blow
05:15 then game time would definitely improve Ryan as well. It is tough, it's tough coming in.
05:19 I've been there plenty of times in my career where you come in from not having played that
05:24 many minutes, it just takes a bit of time, hopefully not too long with all the players
05:28 you've got, but it just takes a bit of time to adjust to the match pace. It's the hardest
05:31 thing, you can't replicate it in training.