Pompey boss John Mousinho fulfils his media duties ahead of Pompey's game against Stoke at Fratton Park
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00:00Yes, I think it was really important to bounce back from the disappointment of three away
00:07defeats on the spin. I know only two of them were in the league, but there was that growing
00:11pressure I think to make sure that we got back on it just in terms of points return,
00:15to get the confidence going again with the boys and to put in a really, really good performance
00:18I think overall against an excellent side. So yes, it was good. I felt good about the
00:22game at the weekend, having watched it back. There were a couple of areas that I think
00:26we can definitely improve. Maybe got cut away with a couple of bits on the break in the
00:30second half, but overall I think we put in a really, really good shift, created plenty
00:33and deserve to win.
00:34There's a big contrast in results compared to home and away. What do you put that down
00:39to at the moment?
00:41I think there's a number of factors, but I think there's definitely the confidence that
00:46we take from being at home and the comfort that we seem to have around Fratton and I
00:50don't want to take away any of that. I want us to build upon it, but I want to try and
00:55transfer some of that to the away form as well. It's a bit of a head scratch. I came
01:00away from the game at the weekend obviously really happy, but slightly frustrated that
01:04we aren't really able to replicate that because if we'd have done that over the away games
01:07over the past however many months, then we'd be in a much, much different position. We
01:12haven't been able to do that. That's a task that I've got to make sure that I get better
01:16at and the coaching staff are always talking about that, how we can adjust things, how
01:20we can maybe tweak a few things away from home, but fundamentally it's the same game
01:25played by the same 11 players, but yeah, we seem to have a real boost at home at the moment.
01:29Matt Ritchie obviously receiving a lot of applaudits afterwards. How do you rate his
01:33performance? Is that the best we've seen of him yet?
01:35I think so. I think he managed to knit together everything in terms of work great off the
01:39ball, which we always see from Matt. The ability to press, to lead the line from where he leads
01:45the line from. I think we've never had an issue in terms of Matt's ability to keep
01:49the ball, his technicality. One thing that we've spoken about recently and I spoke about
01:54after the game was getting him in areas where he can really affect the game in the final
01:57third and making sure that he assists or scores because we know he's got the quality to do
02:02that. So, that was a big challenge I think coming back into the side and I think he did
02:07that with the plyment and it was the difference between the two sides at the weekend.
02:11It must be reassuring to know you've got these players that could just step it up a gear
02:15when needed. Ritchie at the weekend, Lange against Coventry, we've seen Murphy run the
02:19show a few times. Must be quite nice to see.
02:21Yeah, absolutely. We want players to step up and rise to the occasion. We also want
02:26them to do it consistently and make sure that the players set the benchmark for what they're
02:30capable of doing and how well they're capable of playing. So, when we know we've got that
02:34amount of talent in the squad and that amount of talent in the side, the challenge is then
02:39to do it more consistently, which to go back to the first question, we have done at home
02:43but we've not done enough away from home. So, it's great that we've got that and frustrating
02:47that we don't do that often enough and consistently enough. I think hence why we find ourselves
02:51in the position we're in.
02:52Yeah, both the goals taken really well. The assist by Potts for the first one, what a
02:57pass that was as well. How impressed were you with that?
02:59Yeah, really good. I think Middlesbrough had really dropped deep at that point. I think
03:02they had eight drops into the back line. So, really, really good run that Matt still found
03:06in between the centre-half and the left-back and really, really nice ball from Freddie
03:09which made it difficult for the goalkeeper to make a decision.
03:12Swanson obviously getting a lot of the plaudits but his contribution to the second goal as
03:16well, that right-back position at the moment, there seems to be quite a lot of talent there
03:21at your disposal. Is it a bit of a headache when it comes to selection?
03:24Yeah, we speak about that most weeks. Probably the spot in the squad where we've got the
03:27most strength and depth that's fit and we have three players who have all come in and
03:32done well. Very, very contrasting in terms of the way they play and I actually thought
03:35Jordan came in and was superb at the weekend. He did a very, very good job against a really
03:40good winger. So, very, very happy with that and for Zach to be able to come on and do
03:45what he did with the aggression in the middle of the park, something that maybe on Wednesday
03:50we'd fallen short on at times and it just creates those opportunities because Middlesbrough
03:55was slightly open at that point. We fed the ball wide and managed to get the goal off the back of it.
03:58What's the latest with Paddy Lane? How's he dealing with the recent revelations?
04:02Yeah, he's okay. He's not thrilled. I think there's always a balance. I think when it
04:06settles down, he'll realise that it could have been worse and I think that's always
04:10a positive. I definitely feared a lot worse than the outcome that we do have. So, yeah,
04:15he's not best pleased but I think you've got to use that as part of football. Whenever you have a
04:21career that spans any number of years, you're always going to pick up some sort of significant
04:25injury within that. Unfortunately, it's happened for Paddy this year but you've just got to make
04:28sure you use it to come back stronger when it does come back. Are there any other injuries
04:32to report off the back of the Middlesbrough game? No, nothing. A clean bit of health off the back
04:36of the game. How about the players close to a return? Any updates there? Conor's very,
04:41very close. I think that we're looking at, I know there's sort of four games or three games
04:46between now and then, but we're looking at hopefully, in the best case scenario, West
04:50Brom for Conor to return and be available to be back in the squad. If not West Brom,
04:56then we're looking at the Burnley game or possibly the Millwall game as well. But it's
05:00such a quick turnaround. If he's not available for West Brom, we probably wouldn't risk it until
05:03Burnley. So, yeah, we're really making sure that we're cautious with him. We don't want any
05:08setbacks, but he's trained fully now for just over a week and he's looking good.
05:13How's the transfer window looking now since we last spoke?
05:16No real change, to be honest, since we last spoke. A couple of things that are
05:20just ticking along in the background, but nothing major. My main focus has just been on the games,
05:24the turnaround from the weekend to Wednesday. Yeah, we've got one extra day, but it doesn't
05:28really seem like that. There's just a huge amount of games that we've got at the moment with
05:32the backbone game that we had rearranged and the Millwall game coming up and everything else in
05:35between. So, yeah, things are progressing nicely. I'm not sort of blinking to it completely,
05:40but everybody's working hard in the background to make things happen.
05:42A couple of names that are being thrown out there, Hayden Matthews and Thomas Waddingham.
05:46What are the situations there currently?
05:48I think they're both under contract at another club.
05:51Perfect. In terms of players leaving, any updates there at all? We were talking about
05:56Lowry and Stephenson recently. Any movement at all?
05:59No movement as far as I know. I think there's been plenty of enquiries, so I'd be surprised
06:03if something doesn't happen before the end of the transfer window. But, yeah, I think there's
06:10a few bits that will go on between now and when the transfer window closes. So, I think Alex is
06:14going to be part of it and Ben and Tom are players that we're trying to find other clubs for. So,
06:20if anywhere we can try and do that, then we'll do it. To be honest, we obviously know them
06:25internally. We've seen them. We know how good they are. We see them training day in, day out. So,
06:30I'd be very, very surprised if they don't get interest and they don't get moves.
06:33Next up, Stoke City, one of the more memorable reverse fixtures for all the wrong reasons.
06:38Do you feel like you owe them one this time around?
06:42No, but if any players are motivated by that, then yes, I think that's fine. I won't discourage
06:47players from having that sort of desire and that hunger. I think when you have that many games and
06:52things have changed so dramatically, I think for both clubs, to be honest, since that game,
06:56Stoke have got a new manager in charge. We've evolved as a football team. When we played Stoke,
07:02we hadn't won a game yet. We were really poor in the night and it really hurt at the time.
07:09I think it was doubly disappointing because of the nature of the performance, because of the
07:12fact we'd actually performed pretty well in those first seven games, even though we'd not picked up
07:17the number of points we wanted to pick up. I thought we'd actually performed really well
07:20in the majority of them and we hadn't taken that big hammering. So, I think it'll feel like that,
07:27but we've just got a job to do. We've just got a job to do on Wednesday night and
07:30the Stoke staff, Stoke players, that'll be relevant to them. It's just something that
07:36if it's a bit of extra motivation for a couple of our players, then great, but we've just got
07:39a job to do and we've got to be professional about it. As a coach, could you use those games
07:43as motivation as much as you can, say, to win at the weekend? Again, I don't think so. We're
07:48so different to how we were back then. The line-up, the way we play, the league position,
07:54the fact that we're at home at Fratton, I just think everything's very, very different. I don't
07:59think it's particularly relevant to the game on Wednesday. Congratulations as well, two years in
08:03the role. You must be happy and how do you reflect on your time so far? It's been amazing. It's been
08:09amazing to be part of it for the last two years. We've obviously had the massive success that
08:14we've had last year. This year's been really different. It's been a completely different
08:18challenge, but we've sort of had everything in between now in the short spell, the mid-table
08:22finish in the first season where we had a little flirt with the play-offs, didn't quite get there.
08:27And then, yes, contrasting seasons this year and last, but both enjoyable in their own way. It's
08:34been an amazing football club to be in charge of. We've progressed, I think, a huge amount
08:39on and off the pitch. I think, yes, it's really, really important that we crack on and hopefully
08:44it's a few more years at the helm. Where would Championship survival rank for you in your second
08:49full season? It'll feel like, if we manage to do it with everything that's happened this season,
08:55it might in the moment feel like a bigger achievement than last year. I think every
09:01single one does. Whenever you achieve something, it always feels bigger than the last one because
09:04you're in it and you live in it. So I don't know, but that's just the priority at the moment. It's
09:08been great. It's lovely to look back at all the great memories we've had over the past two years,
09:11but the only thing that matters now is making sure that we win games. And we do enough between
09:15now and the end of the season to make sure we retain the Championship status. Brilliant. Thank
09:19you. You previously said when Conor Shotwellson returned in January, he'd need additional time
09:24to consider how long he's been out. And you're looking at February,
09:27is that timeframe now changed if you're talking about West Brom or games after that?
09:32Not really. He's been back for a couple of weeks. So West Brom is probably that best case scenario.
09:38And I think the Burnley game is February. So that's probably the one that we were really
09:42looking at. And maybe he's slightly ahead of schedule, which is why I am hesitant to say it,
09:47but I think everybody... I don't want to come on here and, particularly with this
09:52case, come on here and say anything that's otherwise. I think we've got a good hope to
09:58be optimistic about Conor coming back and maybe being involved. But I think everybody will be
10:03patient around it. I think it's just probably good to know that he is back in full training.
10:07And yeah, he's looking good. How has he looked in training?
10:11Yeah, he looks strong. He looks fit. We haven't trained a huge amount because of the amount of
10:15games that we've had. So usually if we had a free game week, we'd have that sort of Monday
10:19as a reintroduction and Tuesday and Wednesday, we can really go at it and train hard. We've just
10:23never had that privilege, I suppose, over the past few weeks. I think the last time we had a full
10:29training week was in the build-up to the Coventry game. And after that, it's just been game after
10:33game after game. And it's quite difficult to get a proper training session. And then we obviously do
10:37everything we possibly can to make sure that the boys, especially that aren't playing a top-top
10:41with their fitness. But Conor's come back into the group and he looks good.
10:44When he's available for first team duty, do you have to ease him in,
10:47put him on the bench or would you throw him straight in for a game?
10:49I think we've got to ease him in. He would have been out for six months altogether,
10:52so we really have to ease him in.
10:53I suppose a bit like how you're treating Rob Atkinson, really.
10:57Yeah, I think we had the good fortune in a lot of ways to be able to bring Rob on for his debut
11:03at Sunderland. Then he got 25 minutes there and we could use that FA Cup game as a... We wanted
11:10to win the game, obviously, but just for Rob, we knew we were going to take him off at the half
11:14time mark. So it was a bit of a fitness exercise for him because we just wanted to make sure that
11:20he wasn't injured in time for coming back for that Blackburn game where we've been open about
11:26the priority this year being the league and we want to make sure that that's where our focus is.
11:30So we were able to do that. We've built up his minutes. We probably would have liked a bit of
11:35extra rest in between a couple of the games. We haven't got that. So, yeah, we'll see how Rob is
11:41over the next couple of days with the future of the Stoke game.
11:43Obviously, it's been mentioned, two-year anniversary today. Many congratulations.
11:47What would John Massino today... What advice would you give John Massino two years ago,
11:52when he walked into that door?
11:54That's a really good question. I just think be ready to adapt and stick to your principles
12:01and stick to what you believe in, but be ready to adapt in and around that if that makes sense.
12:07So, yeah, there's so many things that happen when you join a football club that
12:12you can't prepare for if you speak to other managers, if you go on the pro license,
12:15if you read as many books as you want. You might think you're prepared in theory, but just nothing
12:19can prepare you for the realities of what it's like to be in charge of a football club. And
12:26that's a good thing, by the way. This isn't negative by any means, but
12:30it's just everything is... You have to adapt day-to-day. You've got to make sure you're on
12:33your toes. You never know what conversations you're going to have. You never know what the
12:36result's going to be. You never know what someone's going to say to you, do to you.
12:39Everything changes really quickly. So just, yeah, be flexible, adapt and enjoy it.
12:44What surprised you about football management?
12:46I think the... Really good question again. The most surprising thing is the amount of
12:54surprises that pop up day-to-day, if that makes sense. Whether it's dealing with players,
13:00all of a sudden you're dealing with sort of 30, 35 players that have all got their own issues,
13:05personal issues. They've got things they want to talk to you about positively, negatively,
13:08all those sort of things. And there's been everything that we've had in between there.
13:12When we're dealing with a straightforward transfer, a lot of the time there's 10 different
13:16things that pop up. Moving into a new training ground, there's going to be teething issues.
13:21Bringing new staff in, like we've done, everything is a real challenge to make sure we get all of
13:25that right through the transition. I think it's been a real sort of transitional period for the
13:29football club as well and everything we've done, not just... We've gone through a completely new
13:34model with a sporting director in. We're in a different league. We've now got a new training
13:39ground, all these sort of things. It just... Everything surprises you day-to-day.
13:44It's a ridiculous question to say, I know, but do you feel you're a better manager now
13:48than a year ago, even?
13:49I think so. I think definitely the adversity of this year, I think, has made me better because
13:55we've had to adapt and it's been challenging. It's definitely been challenging. We've enjoyed it,
14:01but what we've had to do and all sorts of fans and new guys that are connected to the football club
14:06will see is that we're certainly not trying to do the same things that we were doing last year
14:11and we're not trying to do the same things maybe that we did at the start of the season.
14:15Yeah, we've certainly had to make sure that we've been a bit more practical about the way we've
14:19done things and that means you have to coach in a different way. You can't just do the same thing
14:24day in, day out. For some people, that's not the way to do it. For us, we think that's the best way
14:27to try and achieve success this season. I think as you go through and you have that experience,
14:34you start to have the experience of leaning on different scenarios and
14:38definitely already two years down the line, the amount of things that have happened in football
14:45games at the training ground and everywhere in between, at least they give you that bank of
14:49experience to lean on.
14:50Was Stoke the lowest point for you so far in your career?
14:55I don't know. Maybe every defeat feels really difficult but I don't know if it was Stoke.
15:02In some ways, no, because we just got so badly beaten on the night and just take it and move on.
15:08There's probably been some more frustrating defeats. If you look at the likes of Burnley
15:12and Watford, I felt worse after those for some reason but it was a bad night. It was a really,
15:21really bad night. It came as a surprise because I think we've been performing pretty well to that
15:26point. I think we drew nil-nil with Sheffield United on the weekend just previously but it
15:31gave us a lot to think about. It gave us a bit to change and adapt upon which I think we did
15:37pretty well by the time we reconvened and we played Oxford at the weekend and then our next
15:40game after that was the QPR game that brought us our first win. I think a lot of that and a lot of
15:45the resilience of the squad shown since has certainly stemmed from that heavy defeat.
15:52It was just the circumstances. You could see the quick goals away from home before
15:56and since but the manner, it all happened at once. It was just chaos, wasn't it? Bedlam.
16:02Yeah, it was two goals at the back end of the first half that had been pretty even. We started
16:06really poorly. We went a goal down. We got back in the game. We were on top and bang, bang, we
16:10conceded a couple of goals. You think, okay, fine. Three-one down away from home. Start the second
16:14half well and make sure that we stay in the game until the 60th minute and all of a sudden we're
16:19six-one down and probably slightly fortunate that it wasn't worse. So, yeah, it was a chaotic night
16:24and not one that we remember fondly but certainly one that we have to remember and learn from and
16:28make sure that we use all of the, like I said for some of the subsequent games, we use all the
16:33negatives that night and make us better. Two weeks ago in the transfer window,
16:37has the transfer window now changed? Is it older with the FA Cup games? Are clubs more prepared
16:43for players to leave now? Yes, I think that this week things have started to move a bit more. We're
16:48having a couple more conversations around players that we were having conversations on but weren't
16:52ready to go yet and clubs weren't ready to let them go. So, yeah, there's a bit more movement
16:56there with the FA Cup, with incomings as well. Clubs are just waiting for incomings and players
17:01to come in before they shift anyone. So, yeah, things are starting to move.
17:07There still seems like there's an age left in the transfer window, which there is, but yeah, things
17:12are definitely starting to move. You say things are starting to move. In what respect? Just in terms
17:16of the fact that players are now becoming available that weren't available previously,
17:18that we might have conversations about but now they're available. And in turn, does that help
17:23you guys? Yeah, I mean, if we're in the market for players, we have to make sure that clubs are
17:30willing to let them go. So, yeah, that does, that changes things for us. And are you close to
17:35anything at the moment? There'll be nothing, I don't think, before the Stoke game. There'll
17:43probably be no movement that will be available for the West Brom game. But I think next week,
17:47probably, you know, once we've found a couple of bits out, then yeah, I expect to see a couple
17:52of additions by next week. Andy Cullen and various people said it's natural, a lot of that action
17:58towards the end of a window, signing players. Do you still think that'll be the case for Pompey?
18:02I think so, yeah. I've experienced two January transfer windows so far. My first one was
18:07pretty quick because of the fact I signed for Portsmouth this time in January. We did
18:13late in the transfer window. I think Riley was already done. We did Matt very, very early on.
18:19I did Matt Macy early on. And then by the time the transfer window closed, we'd done Deshaun and
18:22Paddy as well. But I think Paddy was deadline day. So Deshaun and Paddy both late in the window.
18:26Last year, we didn't do anything until, I think, the 17th. So I think Miles came in,
18:32or maybe Matt had come in before that, but he was on a free. So yeah, Miles then came in and
18:37we went right down to the wire, I think. Maybe not on deadline day, but certainly,
18:42I think, bringing Tom Mack, Mox and Lange in. Lange was the first one, I think, of those three,
18:47but the other two came quite late in the day. So by the time we got to the back end of the
18:50window, things started to move. Thank you.