John Mousinho reveals Portsmouth man's dressing-room apology following costly Lincoln mistake

The 16-goal striker had a golden opportunity to earn a dramatic late triumph at Sincil Bank when presented with just keeper Carl Rushworth to beat.

However, from eight yards out, Bishop somehow lifted a right-footed shot well over the bar and into the away end housing 1,313 Pompey fans.

That 88th minute moment was the closest John Mousinho’s men came to claiming victory, although substitute Ronan Curtis twice drew stops from the goalkeeper.

Yet afterwards the head coach wasn’t interested in blaming Bishop for his costly miss.

Mousinho told The News: ‘It was a great opportunity, Colby has come in straight away and he knows that he's got to do better.

‘There’s no doubt about that, i don't need to say that, the players don’t need to say that, that’s the level of striker we’ve got.

‘He knows that, nine times out of 10, he will put that into the back of the net. That’s not a problem, missing the chances isn’t an issue because I know Colby will score – and I know Colby will score that one next time.

‘Joe or Ronan flicked it on and, because we had the bodies in there from Lincoln looking fairly open, the ball just didn't quite drop to Colby, who was in a lot of space with a lot of time, which sometimes can be a bit of a curse.

‘He works incredibly hard for 90 minutes and nearly got his reward because he nearly scored. That’s just one of those things.

‘I would be far more concerned if we were going through the game without Colby having a single chance.’

The draw – Lincoln’s 15th of the season – leaves Pompey 10th in League One.

And Mousinho believes Bishop’s misjudgement demonstrated the importance of team-mates also chipping in with goals.

He added: ‘It was one of those tight games.

‘Colby had a pretty good chance on the turn in the second half with that right-foot volley which went straight at Carl Rushworth.

‘Sometimes that’s going to be the case, that’s why we have other players in the side that we hopefully can start getting more goals from.’