'It was probably a nice thing' - John Mousinho's Fratton Park admission as Portsmouth prepare for Cambridge United and Reading home games

Pompey play host to Cambridge United at Fratton Park tonight with head coach John Mousinho confessing the team’s recent run of games away from PO4 was probably welcomed.

The Blues have played just one of their past five matches at their famous home since the 3-0 defeat at the hands of Leyton Orient on January 13. That resulted in a 4-1 hammering of Northampton - but the rest of Pompey’s games over the past month have been on the road, where Mousinho admitted they’ve been able to correct the wrongs that were so obvious against the O’s.

Indeed, the Blues have collected 10 points from a possible 12 away from Fratton Park thanks to wins against Fleetwood, Port Vale and Carlisle, with a draw at Oxford their only imperfection recorded. That has seen Pompey open up a six-point lead at the top of the League One summit with 14 games of the season remaining, And without wanting to offend the loyal Fratton faithful, Mousinho believes it’s those matches on the road that have helped the team get their title aspirations back on track.

Speaking ahead of Cambridge’s visit to the south coast, plus the Reading game at PO4 on Saturday, the Blues boss said those away games equipped the team to put the result and performance against Orient to firmly to bed. Mousinho explained: ‘It was probably a nice thing to be away from Fratton, probably for the boys, after the performance we produced that day against Leyton Orient.

‘It was good to get it out of our system. We went away from home three times on the spin and by the time we came back and played against Northampton I thought we were properly at it then.

‘I just think (against the O’s) we hadn’t quite figured out what we were doing in terms of game tempo and the way we were going about our business. 

‘It’s nothing to do with the support at all, because I thought we got really good support when we were 3-0 down at half-time against Orient. I don’t think anybody turned against us, it was fine. The reaction was great from the fans.

‘I just think it was nice (to play three games in a row away from home), it took a bit of pressure off the boys going away and I thought they got themselves together and we sorted everything out that we needed to sort out. Like I said, by the time we came back (against Northampton), that was more like us at home and we produced a much better performance - and the fans recognised that.’

The 4-1 victory against Jon Brady's Cobblers, which was nestled between the Oxford draw and Saturday’s win at Carlisle, is Pompey’s biggest home league win of the season and really reaffirmed they had put their Orient performance well and truly behind them.

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A double header against Cambridge and Reading now awaits. But Mousinho is confident his side are in a far better place now to meet expectations. He’s also hoping his side can have Fratton Park rocking as he emphasised again the importance of the Blues fans.

‘We’ve addressed a few of the issues and a few of the short-comings after the Leyton Orient game,’ the Blues boss added.

‘It was disappointing we put ourselves in that position. Sometimes it does happen, so we gave ourselves a good opportunity on the Monday to take a good long look at ourselves. We looked at every aspect of the game that we needed to improve upon and that was a big focus going into Fleetwood, Port Vale and the games after that. The lads have done a pretty good job in getting themselves out of what they produced against Orient.

‘But we’ve got to produce that (Northampton performance) again. That’s the most important thing - we’ve got to give the fans something to get behind us about in the first half especially, start the game quickly, start the game on the front foot like we did against Northampton.

‘We know when we do that, especially under the lights on a Tuesday night at Fratton, it can be a really, really special place. That’s a big part of what we want to achieve tonight.’