'I absolutely love it' - the huge John Mousinho Portsmouth admission that every member of the Fratton faithful will welcome

These are just a taste of the amazing soundbites Fournilwrittenalloverit’s Tom Chappell got from John Mousinho in a superb, wide-ranging one-on-one interview with the Pompey boss last week.

And the quotes will no doubt be music to the ears of every member of the Fratton faithful, who probably dread their head coach being linked with jobs elsewhere each time the Blues take a monumental step closer to Championship safety.

Indeed, if you think Mousinho’s stock was high after guiding Pompey back to the Championship as League One champions less than 12 months ago, think again. With the Blues already on the brink of retaining their second-tier status with one of the lowest budgets in the division, and after beating then league-leaders Leeds United on Sunday, the Fratton Park supremo is now widely considered one of the hottest properties in English Football.

It’s sure to have so-called bigger clubs or those with supposed deeper pockets paying closer attention to what’s being achieved at Fratton Park this season.

And while The News’ very own Neil Allen got Mousinho talking about how happy he is with life at PO4 in the aftermath of that Leeds victory, Chappell also got great insight into the head coach’s inner-most thoughts.

In a Fournilwrittenalloverit interview recorded at the Blues’ Hilsea training ground, Mousinho talks glowingly about his ‘amazing’ relationship with the Pompey fans; reveals how privileged he feels working for such a ‘special’ club; speaks passionately about what can still be achieved at PO4; offers an insight into how his family are settled in the area; and, most crucially, how he wants to repay the faith shown in him from the moment he joined the club as head coach from Oxford in January 2023 - as a player!

Mousinho opened up after Chappell asked him about speculation linking him with the current vacant head coach job at Swansea. Here’s what the Blues boss said, in full, in response…

‘If you take the Swansea job, for example, there was absolutely nothing in it from my standpoint,’ said Mousinho. ‘It's one of those things... I remember speaking about it last year at a fans’ conference, and what I don't want to do is pledge my undying allegiance to the football club because I actually think I've got an amazing relationship with the fans and I wouldn't ever want to tarnish that.

‘The one thing I'd say is I've played at a lot of football clubs. I go up and down the country to a lot of football clubs week in, week out and very, very little compares to Portsmouth and Fratton Park, and very, very little compares to the support, the history of the club and the feeling you get at Fratton.

‘You’ve travelled to some of the grounds - lovely football grounds, beautiful set-ups - but It's just not the same, you don't get the same feeling.

‘Ridiculous’ support at Derby County

‘I remember John Harley got a bit of stick for it actually and I don't know if I've ever told his side of the story. We lost 4-0 to Derby and we walked over to the away fans and I'm walking over ready for a barrage of abuse, genuinely thinking: “right, it's got to be time for the away fans now to have had enough of watching us capitulate”. (But) they started singing and it was deafening - 3,000 either singing my name or “Play up Pompey”.

‘John, he started laughing because it was just ridiculous. It was absolutely ridiculous that we got that level of support and that is genuinely very, very special.

‘On Soccer Saturday the other day, somebody asked Paul Merson about our home form and his response was,”have you ever been to Fratton Park? You can absolutely get by on home form!”

Exciting times at Pompey

‘So, yeah, I feel genuinely extremely privileged to be the head coach here. I absolutely love it. I would love nothing more than to stay here for many, many years and build the football club, together with Rich (Hughes), together with the board, with Andy (Cullen), with Tony (Brown).

‘I think that if we have the time to be able to do it and if we can take the club from where, not just here, but where we were when the supporters owned it, when we didn't have this training ground, when we didn't have the facilities you see around us, I feel like we're just getting going.

‘It's a case of, we've got this facility (looking around the training ground) now, we've got a lot of space to keep going and keep building and it feels like it's a very, very exciting thing to be in.

Mousinho keen to repay the faith

‘I'm very settled down here. Family absolutely loves it here.

‘And then the other aspect of it, which I don't think should go unnoticed, is hopefully I repay the faith there as well - first of all the faith the football club put in me by bringing me in in the first place, and by not pressing the panic button any time during the season as well.

‘I think it would have been easy for the club to do that, so I think there's a really good relationship that I've got with the club and vice versa.

‘It's a very long-winded way of saying - (I) absolutely love it here and hopefully can stay here for many more years.’

For your next Pompey read: Portsmouth boss' delight as much-criticised team selection silences prolific Leeds