‘It wasn’t Sheffield Wednesday’: Portsmouth boss on his ire after maiden home defeat

And he has called on Pompey to find the answers to those who look to deny them the momentum at PO4 which can be so irresistible.

The league leaders delivered a textbook away performance to pick up a 1-0 win, and extend their unbeaten League One run to 22 games.

Darren Moore’s side got an 11th-minute lead through a pinpoint Josh Windass finish - and then did everything to break up the game and deny Pompey the impetus they were trying to build.

Mousinho made it clear he had no issue with the Owls’ approach, but did take exception with Ben Toner for doing little to penalise the visitors for their tactics.

He said: ‘It wasn’t Sheffield Wednesday, it was more the refereeing unit.

‘I signalled to them very early on that this was going to be a problem.

‘It kept happening, kept happening and kept happening - and it was allowed to happen.

‘It wasn’t until Iorfa got booked that we saw anything being done about it.

‘One of their defenders getting booked for time-wasting after 50 minutes tells you all you need to know. It paints a pretty good picture of some parts of the afternoon.

‘The fourth (official) acknowledged it, he saw it.

‘I spoke to the ref at half-time about it, too, because it was just very obvious.

‘I think the flair point where Joe Morrell gets booked is entirely because the referee doesn’t deal with it early enough.

‘If you actually break it down, Sheffield Wednesday are just very good at it.

‘I’m not saying it was the difference, because we want to see a bit more here at home.

‘We want to see some football, we want to get the ball down and play.

‘When the ball goes dead you don’t want the game to be broken up, so it’s just a bit of shame from that standpoint.’

Mousinho took Sheffield Wednesday’s approach as a compliment, as the leaders decided to make proceedings disjointed rather than stand toe to toe with Pompey.

The defensive resilience of Darren Moore’s side was evident, too, with not too much created in the way of clearcut opportunities apart from a back heel from Colby Bishop after the restart, which Cameron Dawson did very well to keep out.

The Pompey boss is clear the onus has to be on his side to find the answers, when teams employ a similar approach to the one seen from the visitors.

Mousinho said: ‘I think we do have to find the answers.

‘It’s a good sign of respect the leaders have come here and done that.

‘Now when people do it, we have to manage the referee a bit better and make sure it doesn’t frustrate us.

‘We need to keep plugging away at the things we were doing to win the game in the first place.

‘In fairness, the boys did. I don’t think they got too carried away with all that was happening.

‘It’s just about a few finer details which separated the two sides.’