'It wasn't their fault': Portsmouth boss on why enforced changes not behind Port Vale first-half struggle

Pompey were without influential pair Regan Poole and Alex Robertson through suspension for Saturday’s encounter.

Their replacements were Sean Raggett and Ben Stevenson, with both handed maiden League One starts of the season.

The Blues subsequently produced a significantly below-par first-half performance labelled by their head coach as the ‘worst’ for a long time.

A vastly-improved second-half showing saw them run out 2-0 winners – but Mousinho was not putting the game of two halves down to missing those sidelined.

He told The News: ‘I wouldn’t say the changes impacted how we played in the first half.

‘If you look at the 11 players we put out, I didn’t think anybody performed particularly well in the first half – and that wasn’t the fault of the lads that came in whatsoever.

‘If you look at the two changes we made with their first league starts of the season, they were absolutely outstanding in the second half, two of our better players.

‘Sean was unlucky not to get a couple of goals and Ben grew into the game physically and put his foot on the ball. I don’t think we can look at it as they were responsible.

‘In terms of defending, I also don’t think we had to play differently with Sean being there. We still need to do exactly what we have been doing over the past few weeks, on the ball and off the ball.

‘I don’t think our style changed whatsoever, we have been trying to implement that for quite a few months now and Sean was pivotal in playing that way last season.

‘I thought he was excellent, particularly in the second half. He has found himself out of the side on the form of the two centre-halves, so for him to come back in and play as well as he did was brilliant to see.’

Saturday marked Stevenson’s Pompey league debut – and fourth appearance overall since his summer switch from Forest Green.

And Mousinho praised the 26-year-old’s professionalism.

He added: ‘Ben has been out of quite a few squads. This time last week he travelled to Wigan with us, but wasn’t in the squad.

‘It has been a difficult game for him to come back in, but we expect lads to be right at it and while it took a second for Ben to get into the game, when he did he was really good.

‘He’s fit and works hard in training and never lets his head drop, that's one of the advantages of having those cup games, he came into this with three starts under his belt.

‘We have two really good professionals there, we need that across the whole squad when we have changes, suspensions, injuries, drops in form.’