Pompey boss John Mousinho previews the trip to Exeter and talks about the transfer window and concerns from fans over recent form.
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00:00 The team set the bar so high this season, four points clear of the top of the league
00:03 in the last two games, it sparks a bit of panic among the supporters, how do you see that?
00:08 I mean I don't think there's any panic to be honest, I didn't feel any panic at the
00:13 unboxing day, there's always going to be a few that's, I guess the minority of voices
00:19 that worry about what's happening but I think the message for me is when we, a good example
00:23 when we won at home against Bolton, when we beat Bolton and put ourselves in that position
00:29 we hadn't achieved anything, we hadn't won the league, we hadn't seen Bolton off, we
00:34 hadn't secured anything and then when we lost against Bristol Rovers the complete flip side
00:38 of that, nothing's changed for us, there's no disaster, there's no panic, it's another
00:43 game we haven't won and obviously we want to do better but I think it's really important
00:46 to look at victories and defeats and try and be objective about things and the most important
00:51 thing for us is to make sure that we do take the positives and the negatives from Tuesday
00:55 and roll onto Friday making sure that we correct any of those negatives and amplify all the
01:00 positives.
01:01 I suppose it's really, it's historical, it's happened before, Pompey 2018, 2020 when they
01:06 toppled the league and they don't end up anywhere so that's what the situation, people just
01:10 have a bit of trepidation from history rather than the current team.
01:13 Yeah and I think that's fine and I think that's one for obviously the fan base, being a football
01:18 fan myself I completely get it, being someone who's seen that through the years, the natural
01:24 inclination is to look back at history.
01:25 As far as we're concerned the historical context of it has nothing to do with us, there are
01:30 hardly any players left from those eras, everything's changed around the football club, it's a completely
01:34 different team so naturally of course we understand that that might be coming from people externally
01:40 but as far as we're concerned inside the group we're just making sure we stay level headed
01:44 and like I said when we win games we know we haven't cracked it and when we lose games
01:48 it's not a disaster either.
01:49 Obviously it is disappointing to take one point from the last two matches.
01:52 Yeah we want to win every game and we would have looked at those two games and thought
01:55 we could have taken six points from them.
01:56 The bigger disappointment to me was the Fleetwood game, I didn't think we performed particularly
01:59 well against Fleetwood and I thought we got what we deserved.
02:02 I think on Tuesday I thought it wasn't the case, I thought we performed well and deserved
02:05 at least a point and on balance having looked at everything after the game I thought we
02:09 did deserve to win the game so we obviously need to do more to actually make sure we secure
02:13 those points but yeah plenty of positivity I think going into Friday.
02:17 Obviously we can't see the future but are there little concerning signs for the last
02:20 two games at all?
02:22 No there's always signs in terms of the post-match that we pick up and make sure we try and improve
02:29 upon so when we went through the period of winning four games and not conceding a goal
02:35 we were very very clear on the fact that we still wanted to improve in certain areas and
02:39 that's been the case when we win, lose or draw and again over the last couple of games
02:42 we've looked at the post-match in exactly the same way, reviewed them, made sure that
02:47 we are picking up on everything that needs to be picked up on and I think that's the
02:50 most important way that you try and build a successful team, looking at victories, looking
02:55 at defeats in a game that has such small margins and is such a low scoring game and just striving
03:00 to make sure that the performance is there and more often than not we're sure that we're
03:04 going to pick up results.
03:05 Other than the late goal against Bristol Rovers what else concerns you most of all about that
03:09 performance?
03:10 Nothing really, I'm not concerned about the performance, I thought the performance was
03:13 good, I was much more concerned about Fleetwood to be honest, I didn't think we performed
03:16 particularly well at all in the second half against Fleetwood and I thought we looked
03:19 a bit flat, I didn't think we looked flat at all on Tuesday, I thought we had to deal
03:23 with a difficult away atmosphere and a difficult away side and I thought we dealt with that
03:28 really well and towards the back end of the game I thought we looked likely to score,
03:31 I thought we created more chances, everything we looked at post-game indicated that and
03:36 we didn't put the ball in the back of the net and when Bristol Rovers had their chance
03:39 they showed a bit of composure, squared the ball across the box and ended up putting it
03:43 in from close range and they obviously did that, did it better than us, got the three
03:47 points and there's loads we have to improve upon but in terms of concern that's definitely
03:52 not the emotion we're feeling at the moment.
03:54 In terms of Etixer, how do you approach this match selection wise?
03:57 I think we need to make sure that we are wary of minutes that the lads have put into their
04:01 legs over the last couple of weeks and particularly with the amount of rain that we've had it's
04:05 just been heavy pitches, training pitches, match pitches, all of these sort of things
04:08 we've got to take into account and then ultimately pick on form and pick the side that we think
04:12 is going to win the game so in terms of team selection we'll approach it as we do every
04:15 week making sure that we pick a side that we think is going to go and win and take into
04:21 account all those other factors as well but that's the most important thing for us.
04:25 With injuries there are some positions you can't rotate though, does it make it difficult
04:28 for you?
04:29 I suppose it makes it difficult and easy if that makes any sense because difficult in
04:34 the sense where you can't actually rotate and you can't take players out of that physical
04:38 firing line when they've had so many minutes under the belt but easy because we don't have
04:42 any other choice so we have to play certain players in certain positions and to be honest
04:46 the players that have taken up the mantle when the injuries have been going through
04:52 the camp have performed really well and have been very good value for their places so no
04:56 concern in terms of that, it's always nice to have those options, we want to have two
04:59 players in every position but at the minute with injuries we've obviously picked up and
05:02 we have to make sure that we deal with that and that's going to be a definite theme through
05:06 the last 23 games of the year as well, we've got to make sure we deal with anything that
05:09 goes off the pitch including injuries and get through it and make sure we perform well.
05:14 You mentioned that workload at this time of year, so hectic, will there be many changes
05:19 at all for Exeter?
05:20 I think we're going to have to make sure you get the right balance between freshening things
05:23 up and then keeping a side together that has actually performed well on Tuesday and again
05:27 like I said probably apart from 45 minutes against Fleetwood I thought for the past few
05:32 weeks we've been the dominant side in most games that we've played, I think we've played
05:35 really really well for those four games that we balanced back after Blackpool so we've
05:39 got to make sure we don't chuck the baby out with the bath water and continue on that line
05:44 of progress that we've been continuing on and that's going to make for an interesting
05:48 team selection.
05:49 In terms of injuries what's the situation?
05:52 No new injuries from the weekend, so we've got the same squad to choose from, Connor
05:57 Ogilvie is very very close to returning to training, Tom Lowry is back out on the grass
06:01 today which is really positive and the only one that is a slight negative on the updated
06:07 is Zach Swanson, we spoke about him on Tuesday and he's going to have to go under the knife
06:12 again which is a bit of a blow for us because he's been performing so well and really I
06:17 think when he has been available and has been playing for us this season he's been brilliant
06:21 so we'll have to see how that one pans out but hopefully we can get him back relatively
06:25 soon.
06:26 You previously said that was a minor operation if that happened, is that still the case?
06:30 It is minor, it's just until you actually get in there and open up the area it's difficult
06:36 to actually tell how much repair they need and I think that was the case last year when
06:42 Zach had a very similar operation but on the other side so we're not going to put a timescale
06:46 on it yet, we're going to wait until he has the surgery but it's nothing major, it's no
06:52 big ligament damage, ACL, complete rupture or anything like that so positive on it but
06:56 unfortunately he's got to do it.
06:57 As you say you can't put a timescale on it at all?
07:00 Nothing at the moment, we will once he's had the surgery, we've got no problem doing that.
07:04 Finally in terms of your lone players here at the club, you already said that Andrew's
07:08 going to stay this season, any updates at all on Batkemara and Norwich?
07:12 Nothing from Man City or from Norwich with Robertson and Abu so we expect them to be
07:18 with us for the season.
07:20 Have they told you they'll stay or are you waiting to hear from them?
07:23 No, they've told us they'll stay but we are just very realistic in terms of the fact that
07:27 we know things can change and ultimately the parent clubs have got say in that so particularly
07:32 I think maybe in Abu's case where we could go back in and possibly affect the first team
07:36 if we're being realistic about it, we've got to make sure that that is something that doesn't
07:41 catch us completely off guard if it does happen but we aren't expecting it to happen at all.
07:45 So you'll be waiting for the end of January to be certain?
07:48 Yeah and we've got really good communication and really good dialogue with Norwich and
07:52 we spoke to them really recently, they assured us that they weren't going to recall Abu and
07:55 I think if they do it would have to be extreme circumstances for them and I'm sure we'll
07:59 get plenty of notice.
08:00 And Man City, when did you last speak to them?
08:02 Yeah same, so I spoke to them a couple of weeks ago and you might have seen a bit of
08:07 media out about Alex which was great, really positive and there's absolutely no intention
08:11 from their end to do anything other than keep him with us for the rest of the season which
08:16 is really good.
08:17 As you say though, you can't quite relax him?
08:19 No, you never know, you never know.
08:21 Sides pick up injuries and hopefully the lads will be in sparkling form for us so yeah you
08:26 never know, you've got to make sure that you deal with it as and when it pops its head
08:30 up. Thank you.