John Mousinho: Portsmouth players are Championship quality - I've seen it

Although he has questioned their ‘mentality’ in the aftermath of Tuesday night’s frustrating 2-0 defeat at Cardiff.

Worryingly, the Blues now languish at the foot of the table, having conceded four more goals than any other club, totalling 23 from 11 matches.

The calibre of Rich Hughes’ summer recruitment, consisting of 15 new faces, is now under scrutiny, with Pompey locked in for a season-long relegation battle.

But Mousinho is adamant that, from what he has seen from his team so far, the players are up to Championship standard.

He told The News: ‘They are good enough for the Championship and the reason for me believing that is because I have seen it.

‘I’ve seen players against some of the top sides in the league and I have also seen players against some of the sides struggling at the bottom of the league.

‘They have performed well and done enough to win games, done enough to draw games, and are certainly doing enough to compete against sides which have players that already played in the Premier League, like Anwar El Ghazi and Callum Robinson.

‘Then you have the ones who, in my opinion, are going to play in the Premier League, the likes of Rubin Colwill, Ollie Tanner and Alex Robertson.

‘We’ve done that against Sheffield United, who have a very, very similar mix to Cardiff, and we're done that against Burnley.

‘We're done that against other sides, so I don’t see that as an excuse. If they apply themselves, I think the players are more than capable of really competing at this level.

‘My big takeaway from Tuesday night was the mentality - and I am going to have a chat with the lads about the reasons why we started the game the way we did.’

Pompey found themselves 2-0 down after 13 minutes against the Bluebirds, following Regan Poole’s own goal and Callum Robinson’s finish.

It set the tone for a dreadful first half in which they also lost Paddy Lane, Nicolas Schmid and Jordan Williams through injury.

Mousinho added: ‘When you concede from switching off from a throw-in and a set-piece, I see that as a mentality issue.

‘Cardiff created plenty of chances where they played through us and were better than us. They just played well and did things they were better than us at - and I can live with that.

‘If we concede a couple of goals doing that and we can’t get back into them, that’s fine. No-one wants to be in that position, but sometimes you’re playing against good sides and you have to accept they are going to be decent at certain things, I have no issue with that.

‘The basic issue is we didn't do well enough, that’s where I think there’s a problem.’