'Fortunate not to lose': Portsmouth boss frustrated over tale of two halves against MK Dons

The Blues tonight shared a 1-1 draw at the League One side in their penultimate friendly of pre-season.

Josh Murphy’s third-minute opener ensured the visitors headed in at half-time with the lead, only for Tommy Leigh to level on 62 minutes.

The Dons were denied by a couple of good Will Norris saves in the second period as Pompey struggled to maintain their encouraging display from the opening 45 minutes.

And an honest Mousinho afterwards admitted his team could have departed with defeat rather than a draw.

He told The News: ‘I thought we responded well (to Wycombe) in the first half of the game. We came out of the traps fast, we started well, we pressed really well, we got the ball back on the turnover a couple of times.

‘Unfortunately, when we came out after half-time, we looked the complete opposite side to that. We couldn’t really put anything together in possession or out of possession.

‘I would like to say we got what we deserved in the second half, but we got more fortunate than that - we probably should have lost the game.

‘The result isn’t important but the performance at this stage of the season needs to be better across the 90 minutes.

‘Yet at half-time it was a much, much better first half, we looked like a decent outfit, we looked like a side that knew how to string a few passes together and also get on the press and front foot.

‘Unfortunately we came out in the second half and didn’t manage to do any of that.’

The Blues lost 4-0 to Wycombe last Saturday over 120-minutes and had Tom McIntyre absent at Stadium MK through a knock collected in that defeat.

They now head to Charlton this Saturday to complete their pre-season campaign ahead of the August 10 Championship kick-off.

Mousinho added: ‘The most displeasing thing about MK Dons was the fact we gave the ball away really sloppily and didn't look like we could get near them on the press. We let them out in some really poor areas.

‘There was one little move that MK Dons put together which basically started from the corner flag and we just couldn’t lay a glove on them.

‘We are not talking about shape or getting done by pressing wrong, that’s just individuals matched up and not being able to get near the man. At times in the second half, it looked like we couldn’t get near the opposition number.’