John Mousinho reflects on Portsmouth's defeat to Millwall
Pompey boss John Mousinho gives his verdict on the 1-0 Carabao Cup loss to Millwall.
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00:00John, obviously Millwall 1-0 tonight against Pompey, what were your thoughts on that match please?
00:06Disappointed to lose the game, I thought for the most part we played okay, I think we were good in spells, decent enough on the ball in the second half
00:13and we just lacked a bit of quality I think in the final third and we didn't really create enough to put a huge amount of pressure on Millwall's goal
00:20apart from probably the first 15-20 minutes in the second half when we brought up a good head of steam and the atmosphere was really good inside the stadium
00:25even though it was only half full it was amazing actually, brilliant noise generated from all the supporters
00:31we just weren't quite clinical enough in the final third, we didn't get good enough quality of passes into the box or crosses into the box
00:38and we did have our chances, we didn't put them in the back of the net and I thought Millwall did
00:43and Millwall punished us for a mistake in the first half and that was the difference between the two teams
00:46You were a bit more fired and a bit more about your second half as well wasn't it?
00:50Yeah, obviously the urgency of the game helped with the fact we won them down, I thought we probably moved the ball a bit slow in the first half
00:57but there were opportunities for us to play forward and we did get the ball in some good areas and then just didn't punish Millwall
01:02and we didn't really test him and don't really test the goalkeeper in the first half
01:05so yeah, much more positive in the second half and we showed plenty of endeavour, plenty of effort and just not quite enough quality
01:12Where is or was the Carabao Cup on your list of priorities this season?
01:17We never want to lose any games but the league is the priority and the Cups are secondary
01:21we're in two Cups this year so we're in the Carabao Cup and the FA Cup and we don't have to worry about the FA Cup until January
01:26so it was a priority to try and win the game tonight but certainly I think the bonus is that we now get to focus on the league until January
01:32and we have those midweeks where we're free to train and to work on some specifics that we need to work on
01:37and I think there's plenty we can still improve upon
01:39You rotated it as much as you could today, did you learn anything?
01:43I learned that the lads that came in did pretty well, the team that we picked, there were quite a few changes in there
01:50quite a few lads that had been on the periphery last season as well as this season
01:53and I thought they came in and did a pretty good job considering that Millwall were a half decent mid-table side from last year
01:59we were really consolidated and I thought plenty of players, plenty of championship level players there
02:05so good from that perspective, positive from that perspective
02:08we just need a bit more I think to then go and win these games and that's what the takeaway from the game is from my perspective
02:13How's Tom Larry?
02:15He's okay, he felt his hamstring, hopefully it's just a bit of tightness, we'll see how that settles down in the next 24 hours
02:20Are you concerned about it at this moment?
02:22Always concerned when a player goes off and feels a muscle injury, especially when it's Tom
02:27because we all want Tom to do well and he's had that injury record but we'll see how that settles down
02:32Any other injuries at all picked up in that game?
02:35No, nothing at all
02:36What was the thinking behind playing Jordan Williams at centre-half tonight?
02:39I think we, well I know we're short at centre-back at the moment so with Tom McIntyre and Regan pulled out
02:46we have those two options, we've got Riley Towler and Connor Shuttlessey who played fantastically well at the weekend up at Leeds
02:52and it was the risk of I think losing one of them we couldn't take or losing both of them we just couldn't take that risk
02:59so it's one of those decisions that we didn't necessarily want to make but we had to make it
03:04and obviously just protecting Connor up there who's had an awful lot of football last year
03:09and played pretty much every minute of every game which started so we just thought we'd take him out and give him a rest
03:14Yeah, you can't risk it can you in a cup game?
03:16No, it was that, it wasn't ideal, we have been in positions in cup games where we've been able to rotate the XI
03:23I think this time last year we rotated the entire XI for the Forest Green game
03:27we just have to be careful with injuries going into league games, we've got Luton at the weekend here
03:31we can't afford to lose players, we're already four or five down in terms of where we are with injuries at the minute
03:38so we just have to be very careful with that
03:40How do you think Jordan did in that role?
03:42I thought he did really well, he'll be disappointed I think with being dispossessed for the first goal
03:47but I thought he was really solid, I thought Jordan was one of the excellent performers at the weekend
03:50so to ask him to go again, that's why we brought him off after 60 minutes to try and protect him as well
03:54it's not a role that we're particularly looking at for Jordan so we just asked him to do that and do the best he could
04:00and then Zach went and did a really good job there as well
04:02He's obviously played in the back three for Barnsley before, has he played in the back two much before?
04:06No, not much in the back two
04:07And Zach Swanson in positive tonight as well?
04:09I thought so, yeah, played in three different positions as well, so played as a right back
04:12then went as a six in the second half and played as a centre half
04:15and Zach's got that versatility, getting him fit again is really important for us
04:18and I'm really pleased with Zach's contribution
04:19How is he progressing fitness wise?
04:21Really well, we wouldn't have started him unless we thought he was ready to start a game
04:26He was a couple of weeks behind everybody in pre-season because he was just rehabbing the last bits of the nibble
04:32that he picked up at the back end of last year
04:34and we're really pleased with where Zach's at physically, hence he was able to get through 90 minutes today
04:38Any developments at all on transfers?
04:40I think there may be a couple, there's plenty going on, nothing imminent
04:44and I'll catch up with Rich after the game today
04:46whenever it's close to the game we don't really speak about transfers
04:49so we'll have a catch up after the game
04:52The game will be very very busy tomorrow and Thursday and every single day
04:57I'm not going to name all the days up until the end of the transfer window, but we will be very busy
05:00Thank you