Managerial gambles, protest planes and progress: Portsmouth boss reflects on a year at Fratton Park

When a Pompey side closer to the League One relegation zone than the play-off spots appointed an Oxford United defender as head coach, questions were raised.

Certainly the choice of John Mousinho to succeed Danny Cowley wasn’t widely well-received among the Fratton faithful who, not unreasonably, regarded him as a gamble.

The then 36-year-old inherited a demoralised side without a league win for three months and languishing 15th, just seven points clear of the relegation zone.

Saturday’s trip to Fleetwood marks his first anniversary as boss - with the Blues top of League One.

And, irrespective of a worrying recent dip, Mousinho is justified in being proud of Pompey’s eye-catching progress so far under his management.

He told The News: ‘This time last year, my first question at the Tony Goodall Fans’ Conference was how I was going to get the club out of a relegation battle.

‘Now the first question on everyone’s lips is, quite rightly, how do I guide the club towards a promotion battle? I think we have made a huge amount of progress.

‘It’s important to keep context to anything, the only thing which has changed over the past few weeks is that results haven’t gone quite the way we’ve wanted them to go.

‘Obviously that is the be-all and end-all in football, but, internally, we are really happy with the progress we’ve made.

‘If you take a snapshot of the year as a whole, we think we’re now in a much better position than 12 months ago, not just on the pitch but everything to do with the football club. 

‘We’re not happy with what has happened over the past couple of weeks regarding results, but we are still in a brilliant position with a massive, massive 19 games coming up and a huge opportunity to get the football club to where we want it.

‘When I arrived, I knew there were two things which would win supporters over - results and performances. You could have brought in the most experienced manager in the world, if he wasn’t getting results then the fans weren’t going to stand any of it.

‘Straight from the off you know exactly what you’re going to get from Pompey supporters, they let you know when they think you’re performing well, they let you know when they think you’re performing badly - and that’s absolutely fine, we get that.

‘There would have been no point in me taking this role if I didn’t understand the pressures of what it takes to be head coach of a club like Pompey.

‘We were fully aware my appointment would have raised a few eyebrows and, ultimately, the only thing anyone really cares about is when the football club is progressing.’

Mousinho’s Fratton Park era kicked off against Exeter, just 48 hours and one training session into his new role.

Earlier on the match-day he was introduced to supporters at the Tony Goodall Fans’ Conference, where he eloquently responded to concerns over his appointment.

Then, during the game, a plane hired by supporter group Pompey Coalition flew overhead parading a banner solely aimed at chairman Michael Eisner’s ownership, rather than the new head coach.

It was quite a baptism - yet a 2-0 win inspired by skipper Marlon Pack ensured the regime got off to a perfect start.

He added: ‘I would have expected question marks over my appointment, it was natural, but there are always pros and cons to every single appointment.

‘I was aware of the plane protest taking place, I actually spoke to the Supporters’ Trust before the game and they said “It’s nothing to do with you. Don’t worry about it”.

‘It’s fine, I had no issues, it’s just one of those things. Although the timing was strange, being my second day, I was too busy trying to figure out how we could beat Exeter rather than focus on anything else.

‘I don’t think I even noticed it in the game, maybe I did, I can’t really remember, it’s a bit of a blur that afternoon. It didn’t affect the game whatsoever, though.

‘In the interview process I was surprised at being contacted to interview for the job and then, once we got a bit further into the process, it occurred to me these guys aren’t going to be wasting their time on someone they have got no intention of giving the job to. At that stage I thought I was in with a chance.

‘Any head coach or managerial appointment is a gamble. You go through the entire history of the most successful head coaches in the world and they’ve gone to places and sometimes haven't done particularly well. There are some real high profile examples.

‘My argument is any appointment is a gamble. You never know what someone is going to react like when they get into a football club.

‘You have to weigh up the risk - and the board didn’t think it was a gamble. They weren’t in for gambling with the future of the football club or gambling with people’s hard-earned money or gambling with the fans’ passion and their loyalty.

‘Like everything, any appointment would have been a risk. Hopefully from their point of view it was a calculated risk - and none of that was lost on me when I came into the job.

‘I was fully, fully aware of the fact people would be looking at it thinking if it hadn't gone right then it was too much of a big gamble. That drove me on a lot of the time, to make sure I didn’t let down those people who appointed me.’

Mousinho brought up his 50th Pompey game last month with a 3-0 success at Matt Taylor’s Shrewsbury.

Since then they have won one of their last seven fixtures in all competitions, including suffering consecutive defeats against Cheltenham and Leyton Orient.

However, heading to Fleetwood, Pompey remain one point clear at the top of League One, albeit with rivals now breathing down their neck with games in hand.

Mousinho said: ‘The display against Leyton Orient wasn’t good enough. Some of the earlier performances in those losses have been very similar to games we have won, we just haven’t quite managed to get ourselves over the line.

‘Right now we are fully aware this is not a place we want to be in, in terms of form and results, but everything else we are confident in.

‘We are confident in the squad, we are confident in the way we’re going to attack these last 19 games, we completely understand.

‘There is no-one sitting here thinking “This is brilliant because we lost 3-0 at home to Leyton Orient”. We need to get back on track - starting at Fleetwood.’