'It felt like a defeat': Portsmouth boss on his bitterly disappointed players after agonising point against Barnsley

Barnsley’s Bobby Thomas’ 89th-minute leveller from a long throw cruelly deprived the Blues of successive Fratton Park victories.

At that stage they appeared to be heading to 1-0 triumph through Colby Bishop’s volleyed finish from Marlon Pack’s cross.

As it was, the match finished 1-1 – much to the immense disappointment of the Pompey dressing room.

Mousinho told The News: ‘It feels like a defeat, although maybe not so much for me.

‘I get it and understand that it’s one of those unfortunate things, but it does feel like that for the lads in the changing room.

‘There’s part of me that doesn't mind that because it’s good they are disappointed with this because if you want to do anything in this league – and if you want to do anything with your career – you have to see those games out and make sure you come away with three points.

‘I want them to feel disappointed, but then I also want them to strip that back and come in on Monday morning and say actually that was really positive.

‘That’s the way it should be. If they are coming in high-fiving each other about a point then they are in the wrong industry and that’s not what the fans should expect with the nature of the game.

‘If we did it the other way then they would probably have been pleased, thrilled, but it felt as though they deserved more to me.

‘I was gutted for the lads because they put so much into it and deserved the three points.’

The point lifts Pompey into the top 10, following two wins, a draw and a defeat from Mousinho four matches in charge.

And he is encouraged by the team’s progress, particularly against a dangerous Barnsley side in their latest outing.

He added: ‘I’m really thrilled with the performance overall, it was a really good League One game.

‘In the first half it was tough, one of those where we had to dig in and relied on Matt to make that save, but overall the lads were a real credit to themselves.

‘The really pleasing thing for me was when we went 1-0 up we didn’t sit off, we didn’t go on the back foot, we were still pressing, our full-backs were still getting to their wing-backs.

‘If you look at the two wide men and Colby, they did a brilliant job of pressing their back three and preventing them from playing a lot of the time.’