Portsmouth boss John Mousinho admits group felt Sheffield Wednesday game would be 'straightforward'
Angry Portsmouth manager John Mousinho held little back in his summation of their defeat to Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday - and made a stark admission that some of his group felt the match would be ‘straightforward’.
The talented young manager has overseen a bright start to Pompey’s season but watched on in anger as his side played atrociously on the day, with goals for Barry Bannan and George Brown earning Wednesday a deserved and memorable first win of the season in spite of their obvious challenges.
Mousinho had sought to warn against any complacency from his players in midweek, describing the Owls as a team that had been unlucky not to pick up more points than their one heading into the Fratton Park clash. Now they have four.
“It was a really, really poor result, we got what we deserved and Sheffield Wednesday were far better than us,” Mousinho told local media. “They outfought us, outran us, out-competed, were better on the ball, more clinical and made better decisions in every department. All of those things add up to a 2-0 loss.
“It’s really difficult to put your finger on it, particularly after the positive performances in the first five games and the extremely positive performance last week when everybody came off the pitch thinking we had made a massive step forward.”
Wednesday’s win was their first of the season and moved them to four points, leapfrogging Oxford United in the early days league table and stretching their lead on as-of-yet pointless Sheffield United. As the table begins to settle a touch, Portsmouth had entered the clash hoping to head further towards the early stage play-off places but were bumped into 12th with their second defeat of the season.
What was made crystal clear post-match was that Mousinho was fuming with the attitude of some of his players, who he felt had taken the challenge of crisis club Wednesday lightly - and watched them get punished as a result.
“There are really concerning signs, though,” he said. “You look at today and there’s a lot of complacency which has crept into the group, thinking this was going to be a much more straightforward game than the others. You try to protect against that, we spoke all week about how unlucky Sheffield Wednesday had been. Yet the complacency is there and the fact we started the game so poorly and made awful decisions.
“I genuinely thought this group had turned the corner in terms of putting in those sort of performances, it has happened previously but to happen today - after being so solid and so impressive for the majority of the game this season - is disappointing.”