John Mousinho takes positives from returning Portsmouth pair amid Bournemouth cup humbling

A Pompey XI suffered a dismal 5-2 loss in the Hampshire Senior Cup, despite fielding a strong side containing seven players who have started in League One this season.

At one stage, Mousinho’s men were leading 2-0, only for the Cherries to hit back with four goals in a blistering 12-minute spell, with David Brooks grabbing a hat-trick.

Nonetheless, the Dean Court fixture marked Clark Robertson’s first start since December and Jay Mingi’s maiden outing since New Year’s Day, with both having recovered from injury.

And it was their comebacks which provided Pompey’s head coach with encouragement, irrespective of the disappointing scoreline.

Mousinho told The News: ‘There's loads you can take, the most important thing is the lessons we have learned.

‘With some of the performances, though, we were simply after getting the minutes in. So, if you take someone like Clark for example, it’s the first time he has seen competitive football in a number of months apart from his cameo on Saturday.

‘Of course he wanted to impress and wanted to play well and win the game, but I know everything there is to know about Clark, so for him it was about the minutes.

‘First and foremost, we wanted to get him through it injury-free and he showed some real glimpses of why he has been such a good player through the years – and why he will be a really valuable asset to Pompey going forward.

‘By Clark’s own admission, he’s probably disappointed with the fifth goal, but I know a fully-fit Clark Robertson doesn’t get done like that. It just looked like a physical thing, tiring towards the back-end of the game against a half-decent centre-forward.

‘It was good for Jay (Mingi) to get 90 minutes under his belt and he showed glimpses of what he is capable of.

‘There are other areas of his game we need to keep working on and we will highlight that, we’ll make sure we look at the video and take Jay through that.

‘There were some others competing for spots in the squad and spots in the team on Saturday, so they will probably be disappointed having come away losing 5-2.’

Amid a strong Blues side, there were also starts for an Academy quartet.

Adam Payce, Josh Dockerill, Brian Quarm and Koby Mottoh all lined-up against the Cherries, with the latter marking his moment with a goal.

And Mousinho believes all can take something from the disappointing outcome.

He added: ‘We got a few players through the requisite minutes we needed to – and it was really good exercise for some of the youngsters.

‘The message to the young lads is that’s the level, they saw the differences between Bournemouth and Pompey and we can take a huge amount from that.

‘It’s very easy when we are training and in Academy games, but you must try to gauge where you are, dust yourselves off and go again.’