John Mousinho was exasperated by his Portsmouth side’s performance as they fell to Sheffield Wednesday.
After months of turbulence for the Owls on and off the pitch, they finally got their first league win of the Henrik Pedersen era at Fratton Park, with club captain Barry Bannan and George Brown scoring in each half to move them up to 22nd place in the table. It was a tough day for Pompey despite their domination, with 25 shots taken and only five of those efforts being placed on target.
Mousinho Not Frustrated
A week on from a solid performance against arch-rivals Southampton to gain another point, Portsmouth had a chance to add a fourth match to their unbeaten streak but ultimately could not do anything to stop a defeat to the Championship relegation favourites. Speaking to BBC Radio Solent about the result, John Mousinho branded his team’s efforts as “awful”.
“Frustration isn’t my overriding emotion, I don’t think. Frustration would signal that maybe we were in the game, maybe we deserved something, and we didn’t.
“We were awful for 90 minutes and got exactly what we deserved… [we tried] to protect against it all week, talking about how difficult the game would be, how we needed to be right on top of ourselves and not let any complacency creep in and it has happened previously.”
Summer signing and midfielder Adrian Segecic also highlighted the feelings felt by the Pompey squad in an interview with the Portsmouth News.
“We need to realise that every game in the Championship is a big game. No matter what side you come across, if you’re not up for it and you don’t show that from the first minute and get the crowd into it then things like today can happen.
“They just got the best of us. We need to look at ourselves and know that we can’t start a game like that ever again. It’s a wake up call to us and for the boys that we need to start every game like we’ve started a few games, which we’ve been doing well.
Writers’ View
Adrian Segecic is absolutely correct that this should be a big wake-up call for Portsmouth. They failed to show up against a team that has been in a lot of turmoil as of late and looked tepid for large swathes of this game. They have to deliver something different against Ipswich Town next time, rather than being pulled into conversations they would not want to be in.
