‘Our faithful deserve explanation’: What was said as Portsmouth boss faced officials over Watford penalty controversy

And the Blues boss underlined his view over the ‘worrying’ manner in which officials arrived at the clearly incorrect penalty decision, in the Boxing Day reverse at Vicarage Road.

The News understands the match officials admitted their costly mistake in the late, late 2-1 defeat, with Mousinho feeling supporters deserve an explanation over how they arrived at that verdict.

The head coach calmly outlined his position and what was conveyed to the refereeing team in the aftermath of the clash.

Mousinho said: ‘The amount of the effort the lads put in and the money spent by Portsmouth fans, I think they deserve an explanation.

‘There are going to be times away from home when we haven’t performed and they can be disgusted with our performance.

‘But I also think they deserve an explanation as to what they saw and why it went wrong.

‘The long and short of it is the entire refereeing unit got it wrong.

‘It wasn’t a penalty. The initial assessment of the referee was it was a goal-kick, so the referee clearly thinks there’s no foul.

‘The referee has the best possible view to ascertain, if they do think it’s a foul, whether it’s inside or outside of the box.

‘The assistant referee doesn’t have that view and there’s no need for him to get involved. I don’t know why he gets involved, but he does.

‘He decides it’s a stonewall penalty. If you’re going to do that, you have to be sure. He’s not sure and he guesses because he’s outside the box.

‘The whole process was wrong and that’s the best way to say it. When the dust settled, there’s no doubt the referee unit as a whole got it wrong.’

Mousinho stressed it wasn’t the officials incorrectly adjudging Freddie Potts’ foul on Kwadwo Baah to be in the box he was unhappy with, but the process at which referee Geoff Eltringham and assistant Bhupinder Singh Gill arrived at the verdict.

He added: ‘I can live with the subjective decision and you get subjective decisions wrong.

‘I will question them obviously and I will question refereeing decisions, but it was the process there.

‘We speak to fourth officials all the time and linesmen. They say let the referee ref the game, we’ve got one view and the referee has the other view. He’s in charge and let him ref the game.

‘So that was what I was expecting to happen, but the referee reffed the game one way and the assistant the other way - and somehow concluded it’s a penalty.

‘Look, I think everyone agrees it’s a free-kick, but there was some worrying signs there about the whole process.

‘I don’t want to get too wrapped up in it and we could’ve done a lot of things better with the second goal - but I do think Portsmouth fans deserve an explanation.’