Pompey boss John Mousinho discusses the power cut which led to the Millwall clash being postponed and this weekend's Championship trip to Swansea City.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Have you ever dealt with a week like this before?
00:04No, no, I don't think so. The closest I can think really was around, I think it was March 2020,
00:12a bit of a bizarre week leading up to, I think we had MK Dons when I was playing for Oxford.
00:18We trained right up until the Friday and then we got told to go home and we were at home for a few more months.
00:24The breakout of the pandemic, this is nothing like that, but that was just the closest I can remember to having a
00:29week where we had those back-to-back fixtures postponed for different reasons and unique reasons, I suppose.
00:38One where you wouldn't necessarily expect a championship game to be called off as it was on Saturday
00:43and certainly we didn't expect anything like we saw last night, so it's certainly been a bizarre week.
00:49In terms of last night, how did it unfold from your perspective?
00:54We were back into the changing room, I think at around 15 minutes to kick off, ready to go.
01:0110 minutes to kick off, I go into the changing room, ready to speak to the lads, just give final messages.
01:05And just as I was about to deliver that, the lights went off in the dressing room and in the tunnel,
01:11we saw the lights were off, so somebody smart said, let's just check the pitch before we do anything,
01:15because we had the emergency lights or a couple of fire exit lights were on in the changing room,
01:21which meant we could see, so I thought I can still deliver the talk and it's absolutely fine,
01:25we'll get back on the pitch and play the game. Obviously then realised the floodlights had gone out
01:29and it was a lot of back and forth with the referee, with Neil Harris.
01:34We thought that the game would be back on when the floodlights did come back on,
01:38hence we sent the players out to warm up again and then the interactions became a bit more heavily involved
01:43with safety officers and with the police at that point, there was a real concern from them.
01:48We had to listen to people who were quite rightly concerned about the safety of all the supporters on the ground,
01:53that was the most important thing at that point. It became apparent to us only a couple of minutes
01:59before the announcement was made that the game was going to be postponed.
02:03One of those that was a really unfortunate incident, nothing anyone could have done about it,
02:08and everyone was clearly really disappointed because they wanted to see some football.
02:12Was there a moment where you thought this game couldn't go on?
02:19I just knew a couple of minutes before the announcement was made, we were having a discussion in the tunnel
02:24with the police and the safety stewards and at that point it became clear that there were going to be some fundamental issues
02:31that for the sake of putting the game on weren't really worth risking and to be honest,
02:38the decision making at that point from my perspective made sense.
02:42Everybody wanted the game on, the police, the stewards, the referees, the safety officers,
02:47everybody wanted the game on, we just had to make that decision.
02:50You had a training session afterwards, how important was it to make use of the time you had at the ground anyway?
02:55I think it was really important, what we'd gone into the game on Wednesday with was
03:01obviously a disruptive schedule over the weekend, we'd expected large physical output at the weekend
03:06and recovery after that, we clearly didn't have that luxury, or otherwise luxury I suppose,
03:12but we'd already adjusted the schedule for Saturday because we'd got back in on Sunday,
03:18basically because once the game was called off on Saturday we didn't want, Thursday we weren't in,
03:23Friday we did very little, Saturday would have been a complete down day,
03:27we didn't have a chance to do anything after Blackburn, we didn't want Sunday to be that four days
03:31going into what would have been a light Monday and Tuesday, so we had a good session on Sunday,
03:35Monday and we didn't do anything, Tuesday, prep day, prep days are very, very light,
03:41very, very tactical and very, very light going into the game, so again we had those two days
03:45and I didn't want another day where we did nothing, we'd factored in another heavy physical output on a Wednesday night,
03:52so we needed to get something into the lads, so we got to train on the pitch which was great,
03:56it meant that when we've been back in today we've just been able to focus on Swansea
04:00and just do a really light technical session to build into a bit more of a bright one tomorrow
04:04and then we can go hopefully with some fresh airs on Saturday.
04:07I can imagine you'll need more than anything to be able to play a game of football on Saturday,
04:11does it feel like because of the break, does it feel like you're probably getting a little bit of a stance?
04:15We'll just wait and see, we don't know if we can play the game Saturday yet,
04:18we don't know what's going to pop up, but yeah, we're desperate to play, we want to play games,
04:25there's no coach or player that ever wants postponements unless you've got some serious injury
04:30that's piled up but then you never know when you're going to play that game again,
04:33you never know what you're going to have when the game's rearranged,
04:36so there's no issue there, you always want to play games, you don't want to fix your list piling up,
04:40so yeah, we want to get back and we want to play.
04:42There's going to be some negatives to not having played I think in three weeks
04:45and there's going to be some big positives as well,
04:47so we just want to get back out there and hopefully put some good football on.
04:51In terms of Swansea, if you went through the table, what would be your assessment of them as a side so far?
04:56A really good side, very, very organised, in really good shape, very, very well coached
05:01and they are in a couple of key areas, they're right at the top of everything that we've seen
05:06and we value and we look at statistically,
05:09so I think that Luke's got them doing a terrific job at the minute
05:13and they are very distinct in terms of the way that they play and difficult to play against,
05:18we've got to be right at it and off the back of a decent result mid-week
05:22and actually a really good performance against Leeds that we went to see on Sunday,
05:25I'm sure they'll be full of confidence.
05:27Just finally, any change on the injury plan?
05:30The only one that you guys would have seen was Cassini was out of the squad last night,
05:33he picked up an injury during the game when Australia played Bahrain on Tuesday night,
05:37managed to finish the game to play, I think it was just before half-time,
05:40so there were no major issues and that can sometimes happen during the game,
05:44but his knee was slightly swollen after.
05:46He flew back Tuesday night, got the treatment on Wednesday that he needed,
05:49was scanned on Friday afternoon, so we're just awaiting the final scan results
05:53and for him to see a specialist before we put a time scale on it.
05:57Just on Yengi, it seemed broadly upbeat, your perception of that,
06:02is that still the take on him?
06:04Say that again, sorry?
06:05The perception is that it wasn't too bad with Cassini, the injury?
06:08Yeah, we honestly don't know.
06:11With knees, ankles, hips, we're always really wary,
06:15so knees especially, we're not sure.
06:18We're going to wait and see how the specialist reads the scan,
06:21but this week I haven't paid a huge amount of attention to it.
06:24My brief was that he wasn't going to be fit for the weekend,
06:27wasn't fit for Wednesday and those were the words I needed to hear.
06:30Obviously I'll keep checking back in with Steve and Cassini,
06:34but I don't think he'll be available for the weekend.
06:36Obviously with him it's been groin, other groin, possibly?
06:39Yes, yeah.
06:40And then it's obviously been a stop-and-start season for him already, isn't it?
06:44Yeah, it has, frustrating for Cass, any injury is frustrating for us.
06:48When he goes away with Australia and picks up an injury,
06:51we've answered a lot of questions about possible reasons for injuries
06:55that we pick up in training or in games here.
06:57That's one of them, people do pick up injuries on international breaks
07:00and it's probably one of the reasons why certain players
07:03don't necessarily want to go on international duty
07:05or play for the national teams.
07:07We're not one of those clubs, I want players to go away
07:09and play and represent their countries
07:11and I think it's a really proud moment for anybody connected with sports
07:14when they do that and it does come with a slight risk
07:16and unfortunately Cass has ended up picking up an injury.
07:19One of the big frustrations last night was seeing Colby Bishop
07:22in the starting line-up and then walking around
07:25shrugging his shoulders like everyone else.
07:28Was it obviously a frustration for him personally as well?
07:31Yeah, it's fine really. Colby's going to start games.
07:34He doesn't start on the weekend, he's going to start on the game.
07:36So Colby will be fine, he'll be alright.
07:39The biggest frustration is for all of the fans.
07:41How ready is he to do 60 minutes at the moment, would that be?
07:46I think we'll look at 45 and we'll go from there.
07:50I think we'll just reassess everything at half-time.
07:52He's been out for a long time and he's had major surgery
07:55and he's not had the benefit over the past three weeks
07:59of having any minutes under his belt.
08:02We'll take it as each match comes and we'll look at it at the weekend
08:07if he does start and go from there.
08:09Was he not able to play behind closed doors because of the protocols
08:12when he was coming back or was that just the way things worked?
08:14No, he just didn't have a game.
08:16So that was a process for him building into the Preston game, wasn't it?
08:21Yeah, we just didn't have any behind closed doors games in the build-up
08:24to the Preston game where Colby would have been fit.
08:27So that was it, we didn't have a behind closed doors game
08:30in between the Preston and the Blackburn game.
08:33So that was it. If he'd have been past fit after the Preston game
08:38when he was past fit, if we'd have had a game,
08:40then he'd have been involved in it.
08:42And you've been clear about your mindset that he's now part of the group
08:45and to be treated like anyone else?
08:47Depends on why he was in the starting line-up last night
08:49and I'll give away my big secret, he was in the starting line-up
08:52against Blackburn as well.
08:54Yeah, no issue there.
08:57As has been said, 21 days.
08:59Is there a graph somewhere with X and Y on Matt Sharpness
09:02for the lack of time throughout the game against the period of time?
09:06If there is, I haven't seen it.
09:08There's probably a lot of conjecture and there's a lot of old wives' tales
09:11about what you want to do and what the ideal is.
09:13I think ideally we'd really like to have played games
09:16and I said it in the build-up to the Millwall game,
09:18I'm fairly sure that off the back of the Blackburn game
09:22we came out of it thinking we'd like to have played it
09:25and it's one of those, we're going into the game now
09:28without any minutes in two and a half weeks
09:31and I'm sure Millwall would have looked at it and gone,
09:33aren't they lucky, they're fresh from the weekend.
09:35We had a gruelling battle against Sunderland that lasted
09:38something like 130 minutes altogether with the stoppages.
09:41So I'm sure Millwall would have been in that mindset.
09:43Going into the weekend, we're thinking,
09:45yep, there's three weeks without a game.
09:48Is there going to be some factor where we're not Matt Sharp going into it?
09:53Because Swansea have had the two games since
09:54and I'm convinced, Swansea might say otherwise,
09:57but I'm convinced they'll go, oh look at them,
10:00lucky so-and-so's because they've managed to rest.
10:02We've had a gruelling game against Leeds on the Sunday,
10:05we've had to travel to Derby on the Wednesday
10:07and back to Swansea for another game.
10:09So I think there's advantages and disadvantages to it
10:13and we just have to do our best to take all those advantages
10:15and go into that game really fresh, really at it,
10:18really energetic at the weekend and take advantage
10:20of the fact that we haven't had a game in three weeks.
10:22Does it feel a little bit like things are conspiring against you at the moment
10:25and is it important not to guard against that mindset a little bit?
10:28It doesn't, to be honest.
10:30Frustrating not to play games, but it's not the end of the world.
10:36It's just one of those things.
10:39Things have conspired against us to not play,
10:42things have conspired against the fans more than anything.
10:45All the fans that were up in Blackburn
10:48that have spent a lot of money getting up there
10:50and the ones I feel sorry for were the Dumbledore postponement,
10:54the ones that went to Salford.
10:56I'm sure they were all at the game the other night as well.
10:59So those are the ones I feel sorry for more than anything else.
11:01We're fine, we're absolutely fine, we'll get on with it.
11:04We've watched all the other results come in
11:06and the league table tighten up at the bottom
11:09and give us a really fantastic chance if we do pick up results.
11:11So we're absolutely fine.
11:16We just have a wry smile about it.
11:19As long as everybody got home safely last night
11:22and got home safely at the weekend, we're fine.
11:25We'll go again and we'll have plenty more football games to play.
11:27Good.
11:28Miles Pitt-Harris reunited this weekend.
11:30How much of an impact was he on last season?
11:33How much of a threat is he this weekend?
11:35He had a big impact on us at a crucial time last year
11:38coming into the side straight away at Port Vale.
11:42We played a lot of games between then and the end of the season
11:45and he was a big part of the title-winning side.
11:48At the weekend, as with any other player,
11:50he's just unfortunately, for anybody interested,
11:54of no relevance that he played for us last season.
11:57He's just another player that plays for Swansea
11:59and is a really good player.
12:00We know his threats and we know what he's all about.
12:02We know what he's capable of
12:04so we have to be fully aware of dealing with him
12:07and the rest of Swansea's players.
12:08It seems like his season's picked up.
12:10He's had a run of games, I'm sure you're aware now,
12:12coming into this one after mainly being on the bench.
12:14Yes, and we fully would have expected it from what we saw last year.
12:17Having made the step up from full-screen to us,
12:19he was ready to go again at the next level.
12:21Yes.
12:22January is coming, so you know what that means.
12:24Names, I think one that's appeared already is Joe Geldhardt.
12:27What can you say on that?
12:30Nothing in that one.
12:32Nothing's crossed my desk on that fantastic player.
12:35I know he's not been playing this season
12:37but nothing I can give you on that one.
12:40Hayden Matthews is someone that was talked about in the last window.
12:44Someone reputably at a bid for and talk of another one
12:47potentially in January.
12:48Yes, again, from our perspective,
12:51you're probably going to get bored of me saying this between now and January.
12:53It's been the first time you've said it for a while.
12:55Yes, because we've had a bit of a break.
12:58If you can pick out some players that are out of contract,
13:01then you might put me in a bind because I'll have to speak about them.
13:04That doesn't violate the rule.
13:06At the minute, Hayden's a fantastic young player who's contracted.
13:11So yes, no comment on that.