‘Pride ourselves’: best v best with Portsmouth out to halt Peterborough United’s irresistible attacking force

John Mousinho is out for Pompey to showcase their defensive ‘pride’ as they take on League One’s most potent attacking force.

The Blues boss acknowledged his team will have to halt an array of attacking riches, as they collide with Peterborough in this afternoon’s promotion showdown at London Road.

Darren Ferguson’s men are the division’s top scorers so far this season, smashing in 74 league goals and firing in 11 finishes in their past three outings.

Meanwhile, Pompey will go take the division’s best defensive record into the game, letting in 32 goals this term as they search for their 18th league clean sheet of the season against the Posh.

Mousinho said: ‘We’ve built a lot of our success on our defensive work, making sure we keep clean sheets.

‘If we don’t keep clean sheets, obviously don’t concede too many and be a real difficult side to break down. We do try to pride ourselves on that.’

Colby Bishop’s 16 league goals this season isn’t surpassed by any Peterborough players, but Ferguson’s side have seen goals arrive from a number of different sources.

Ephron Mason-Clark, who agreed a £3.5m move to Coventry in January before being loaned back to the Posh, has 13 goals to his name.

Winger Kwame Poku has bagged 11 finishes with Ricky-Jade Jones hitting 11 efforts, Jonson Clarke-Harris (seven) and suspended Hector Kyprianou (seven).

Mousinho added: ‘I certainly think they’re up there (in terms of attacking strength).

‘The front four have probably scored the most goals and the front four they have is also interchangeable, in terms of the forwards they have.

‘We watched the game against Northampton and they brought Jonson Clarke Harris off the bench who is a very good goalscorer at this level. I think Malik Mothersille was the other player to come off the bench.

‘They have good options up top and the wingers are really steady, in terms of Poku and Mason-Clark playing every week.

‘Mason-Clark has gone to Coventry for £3.5m and they have options in behind but Randall plays there most of the time.

‘So they have a very good frontline.

‘Players like that (Mason-Clark) have been excellent and we’ve seen that.

‘We saw that at Fratton Park when we had a really interesting game, but managed to come out on top in that one.

‘I thought Peterborough started that game really well and Jones got the goal early on. They are certainly a really good opponent to be coming up against.’