Detailed: Portsmouth boss’ remarkable and revealing insight into Stoke City post-mortem

In a remarkable and revealing insight into the mentality of the Blues boss, his philosophies and manner of operating, Mousinho has broken down in detail the processes

The head coach was sent reeling by the 6-1 capitulation at Stoke, with the performance devoid of the qualities his team have showed for the majority of a difficult opening to the Championship season.

Mousinho felt it was important for he and his coaching staff to look at their own roles in what unfolded at the bet365 Stadium, while taking on board feedback from his own players with the use of video analysis..

He said: ‘The first thing we do with any performance is strip it back as a coaching staff.

‘We’ve said we don’t think it’s good enough from the players, but they are the players we picked we coached, we set up, put out there and set up tactically.

‘So that’s on us - that’s on us and that’s on me. It will be on me again in the next game. If we don’t perform it’s on me.

‘If we do perform everyone is going to think “what a fantastic turnaround etc”. So we have to take responsibility and take all of their points on board.

‘After the game there is because you get enough emotion in the game and you get enough emotion in training - full stop really.

‘So when you analyse the games you have to be as rational as possible.

‘Sometimes I do think you can get carried away on the sidelines. You see it and then look back at it afterwards and you think: that’s not how I saw it. That’s where the video is great because the video doesn’t lie.

‘You can pause the video and have a debate about whether a player could’ve gone there or whether we were set up wrong tactically etc. That’s fine, we can do all those things.

‘The one thing I say to the boys is: I set you boys up tactically, if there’s anything I get wrong I take it on board. Absolutely fine.’

Mousinho offered a blow-by-blow account to The News of how he viewed the Stoke goals, with his initial reaction consistent with what he saw when reviewing the game.

The 38-year-old wanted to assess whether the manner in which Pompey were set up or organised to press Stoke was to blame, but saw more basic requirements were lacking as broke down the goals in minute detail.

He added: ‘This isn’t me trying to defend my position but the goals we conceded at Stoke, you can go through them.

‘The first one was a free-kick which we need to deal with better. We’ve got possession and then give the ball away and concede a free-kick.

‘The next one is from our throw, so they don’t carve us apart because the shape and press is wrong. The third goal is from a drop ball - our drop ball. We go backwards and give the ball away.

‘The fourth goal is from our long throw. The fifth goal is from a quick free-kick. It isn’t a free-kick, but that’s fine - it’s Zak’s challenge near the halfway line but we don’t organise.

‘Then the sixth goal is from a break where all get attracted to the ball down the left and the lad pops up in the middle.

‘The last half hour we couldn’t live with Stoke, because it was 6-1 and it was just a different game. Apart from that there wasn’t a huge amount in the game - it was energy, second balls, being alive from set-pieces.

‘That’s all me and I have to take that on board, but we’re also wary of thinking it was a system we couldn’t cope with or press we didn’t get right.

‘They are the things we look back on and ask: have we got that wrong?

‘I’m not entirely sure we did. We got something wrong, we got something majorly wrong - but there’s a difference between what we have got wrong, what we haven’t and what we need to get right moving forward.’

Mousinho yesterday told The News he is confident he and his players are on the same wavelength when it comes to where Pompey’s shortcomings lay, with the group willing to take accountability for the issues. And that has led to some honest conclusions, as the Stoke events were put to bed.

‘A lot of it was losing challenges,’ Mousinho added. ‘We lost a lot of 50-50s - the third goal was an amazing example of that.

‘It was a long throw, we actually win the flick on and the ball comes back out. We don’t cross it into the box and then we get dispossessed on the edge of the box because we’re not sharp enough.

‘We then lose a challenge in the middle of the park - and that’s where the players have to look at themselves and say: how can we lose that challenge?

‘By the way, we should still deal with the through ball even though it’s not a penalty. But we made too many mistakes leading into that.

‘Winning the tackle is something the players need to think long and hard about, but it comes back to me. I have to figure out why my players aren’t winning a tackle in the middle of the park.

‘What on earth have we done to put them in that position - and that’s 100 per cent on me and the coaching staff.

‘It felt different to any of the other losses, because there was still positivity around the place. Certainly that was the case after the Burnley game after the performance.

‘That was the first time we haven’t been in a game and were properly done. We’d navigated those tricky first seven games, but I’d always said the eighth one was no easier at Stoke.

‘It was absolutely not, but maybe the mentality of the players was that going into the game.

‘I never thought it was going to be easier or Oxford would be easier - they are good sides, but we had navigated those tough games and perhaps that was part of the mentality going into it.’