‘Bothered? I take it as a compliment’: Portsmouth boss responds to criticism from opposition managers
John Mousinho brushed off criticism of his playing style and insisted: ‘Bothered? No, I take it as a compliment’.
Phrases such as ‘dark arts, old-school football, and long ball’ have been thrown at the Blues in recent months by the bosses of losing sides.
Certainly Mousinho isn’t ‘bothered’ by comments from detractors.
He told The News: ‘I want players to compete, I want them to be tough, I want them to stand up to challenges, I want them to represent what Pompey is about.
‘I want them to represent Fratton Park, I want them to represent the city and the fans. They expect a certain level of commitment and that commitment often looks like an intense, aggressive side.
‘There are some words that opposition managers have said about us and I genuinely take them as a compliment. Talk about intensity, physicality - both things which top-level sides have.
‘There’s no top-level side you see getting bullied on a consistent basis, that’s for sure. Look at some of the top athletes at the top level and they are physical.
‘What they are saying doesn’t really concern me. There have been adjustments to the playing style, we did it in a certain way last season, where we dominated the majority of games, but we weren’t afraid to go longer as well. There were plenty of matches when we had to go more direct in League One when sides pressed us.
‘I look at last Saturday and QPR’s press was really good, they were really aggressive and really intense. The amount of times that Ilias Chair got his head down in the middle of the park, went to press a centre-back and was backed up by Koki Saito on the left-hand side and another midfielder.
‘So there’s Option A, which is to try to pass around that, trying to break the press, which looks great at times, but you might get caught.
‘Or Option B which is if sides press let’s see where the space is. If the space is somewhere else then we’re going to try to take that. If that feels like a long ball, then fine, I really am not too bothered about it.
‘We’re trying to not get caught in the press - and our second goal was catching QPR in the press.
‘My final point on it is I looked at the stats after the game and we had 49 per cent possession, while QPR completed nine more passes than us.
‘It’s not something which overly bothers me, the most important for us is to stay in the league - and what I think is the best way to do it is how we’ll go about games.’
Pompey’s physicality saw Stoke boss Mark Robins claim his team had been ‘bullied’ in their 3-1 defeat at Fratton Park last month.
Regardless, Watford, Sunderland and Preston all have worse disciplinary records in the Championship this season.
Although the Blues did have three players booked in last weekend’s 2-1 victory over QPR.
Mousinho added: ‘We picked up three bookings with Connor Ogilvie early on. Another was Regan’s challenge late in the game when he stopped a counter attack, which is fine. Then Christian Saydee had a bit of a to-do near the bench.
‘It wasn’t an overly-physical game. For 75 minutes it wasn’t a fractious game either, although it spilled over a bit towards the back end.’