John Mousinho 'unconcerned' over Portsmouth pre-season worries ahead of Leeds opener

And he points to last summer as proof that friendly defeats don’t necessarily herald a poor campaign.

The Blues lost 2-0 at Charlton on Saturday in their final summer fixture amid a disappointing showing against the League One club.

It followed a 4-0 defeat to Wycombe in a 120-minute behind-closed-doors fixture and then drawing 1-1 at League Two MK Dons, displays which also drew criticism.

Yet, as Mousinho points out, Pompey last year lost friendlies to AFC Wimbledon and Bristol City, both 1-0, heading into the 2023-24.

And supporters know exactly how that season turned out.

The Blues’ head coach told The News: ‘We have learnt we can’t afford to go into games half at it and can’t even afford to go into games at 90 per cent, we have to be at full tilt.

‘We have now been punished by three sides at levels below us and we’re going into a game on Saturday against one of the top teams in the league. We have to make sure lessons have been learnt and that we’re at full tilt going into the match.

‘I am not concerned (by the pre-season results). The results I really don’t care about, results are results. It will be nice to get into winning habits, but it honestly doesn’t really matter.

‘We went into last season off the back of two losses (Wimbledon and Bristol City) and I don’t think it affected our form early in the season.

‘We have to make sure the performances are better. The biggest thing to take out of the pre-season games is yes we’ve got our fitness in there, but performances do need to be better.

‘We have a week’s worth of training, we’ve got plenty to work upon, and we have to knuckle down.’

Mousinho himself was critical of performances against Wycombe and MK Dons during pre-season.

He was also unhappy with the second half at Charlton - and found little solace in an ‘okay’ opening 45 minutes.

He added: ‘The first half at Charlton was okay, but the standards we are striving for is not just to be okay when we play a pre-season friendly.

‘Okay is okay, that’s about it, but we’re certainly not happy setting okay as a standard.

‘In the second half it looked like we were overrun and we couldn’t quite come up with the solutions when Charlton pressed, we were second to everything, so that was really disappointing.

‘We looked a lot stronger towards the back end of the match, but the game was dead by that point and both sides had made quite a few subs, so I’m not going to read anything into that.’