'I had no choice': Portsmouth boss on reasons for surprise system switch - and whether it's here to stay

John Mousinho chose the anniversary of his Pompey appointment to ditch a back four for the first time.

Yet he’s unsure whether the system switch to three centre-halves will be retained, despite a welcome return to winning ways at Fleetwood.

The Blues’ head coach revealed a neck problem for Joe Rafferty and Zak Swanson’s ongoing injury issues left him without a recognised right-back for Saturday’s trip to Highbury Stadium.

Instead, on a year to the day since joining Pompey, he opted to line-up with a back three, consisting of Conor Shaughnessy, Sean Raggett and Ryley Towler.

The formation change drove a 1-0 success following consecutive defeats, with Abu Kamara’s first-half goal settling matters. 

Although Mousinho has still to decide if he will continue with his new system beyond this weekend.

He told The News: ‘With Joe Rafferty being injured, leaving us without a right-back, we didn’t really have a choice. I didn’t think there were any natural replacements to slot in there.

‘It’s nothing long-term, he just had a problem with his neck earlier in the week and was touch and go whether he would be fit, ending up not travelling on Friday.

‘It also seemed like it might be a game to suit three centre-backs on the pitch, with how physical Fleetwood are. It might sound strange, but they are quite a good side, they took a point off us at Fratton Park and, under the new management, will cause sides problems.

‘It was the right thing to do going to that shape and, in my opinion, players should be able to adjust to shapes - and they did it really well.

‘It would have been nice to have a bit more time to work on it, but, from what I saw, especially in the first half, in terms of our ability to get the ball down and play on a very, very difficult pitch, the lads adjusted to it very well.

‘I don’t know whether we’ll use it again, it depends on injuries, but I thought it worked well on Saturday. It’s really good to have that flexibility and for the lads to be able to switch into that with a day’s notice is great.

‘For the year I’ve been here, it has been a back four starting every time and that’s the system I prefer, but, at any point in the game, if you take a snapshot of the pitch, the players are in different positions.

‘It never looks like a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1, we want players to rotate into different shapes, in and out of possession as well, so I think they’re flexible enough to do it.’

With the recalled Terry Devlin and Paddy Lane operating as wing-backs, there was plenty to like about some of the performances in victory on a bitterly cold day.

Although after complete dominance in the first half, the second saw Pompey lose fluidity and endure a nervy finale.

Mousinho added: ‘In the second half,  Fleetwood pressed us a lot higher, the game changes, and the pitch became more difficult to play on which is a factor. You probably saw the ball going into the middle of the park a couple of times and our players having to take an extra touch.

‘Where we need to be a bit better is when we’re not playing as much as we’d like to,

‘We caught them on the counter quite a few times and then didn’t end up putting the ball into the back of the net from a few of the chances we had.’