‘I won’t lie’: Portsmouth boss’ table-topping boost as Derby County stumble ahead of next stage of promotion battle with Bolton Wanderers, Peterborough United & Co

John Mousinho admitted Derby County’s mid-week missed opportunity to snare top spot offered Pompey a surprise boost.

But the Blues boss acknowledged it’s now on his team to protect their League One lead, as a promotion-chasing scrum assembles.

Paul Warne’s side missed the chance to knock Mousinho’s side off their perch for the first time since the start of December, as they lost their game in hand at struggling Reading with a weak display in the 1-0 reverse.

Just four points now cover the top five teams in race for the Championship, which has tightened up considerably in recent weeks. Peterborough have a one-point deficit and game in hand over Pompey, while Bolton are two points behind having played two fewer fixtures.

Mousinho was honest about following events on Tuesday night and the lift that gave his team, but made no bones about the fact it’s Pompey who now have to do everything to retain top spot as they go to Port Vale. 

He said: ‘I won’t lie, it was something I looked at and enjoyed. It’s nice to be top of the league.

‘We put ourselves in a position recently where it was out of our hands, and that’s a good lesson for us what happens if you slip in the league.

‘We were always going to look at the results, but the only thing we can focus on now is our game at Port Vale. The only way we can come out of it and ensure we’re still top at the end of the day is to win the game.

‘It’s been nice and it’s been good, but we know you don’t win anything at this stage.

‘It’s tightened right up. From us down to eighth, it’s pretty tight. Even Barnsley, they’d dropped off but have now won a few games and been right at it - it just shows you how difficult this league is and this time in the league.

‘You can look at the Derby one at the weekend. Derby were in fantastic form, blowing sides away and came unstuck a bit on Tuesday night. It’s a difficult league to win games in consistently - we’ve found that out the hard way. We have to keep at it and win as many as possible.’

After outstanding form over the first half of the season, Pompey built a seven-point advantage - but poor form over the Christmas period saw that lead eroded. After the terrible Leyton Orient showing at Fratton Park, Mousinho’s men bounced back at Fleetwood after drawing a line in the sand and going back to basics.

Mousinho added: ‘Last week we tried to reset after the Orient game and get right the things we got wrong.

‘The glaringly obvious things we did wrong against Orient, we put right at Fleetwood. That’s just in terms of the basics of the game, there’s loads more to come.

‘We were pleased with our first-half performance last weekend, the second we weren’t quite at in terms of creating and dominating the ball.

‘But we showed other aspects of our game, in terms of the grit and determination to get the result.’