'Poor': Why relentless Pompey boss was unhappy with latest victory as he eyes the Championship

Relentless John Mousinho is demanding more from Pompey as he drives them on towards the Championship promised land.

The Blues racked up their fifth win in six matches following a 3-1 success over Cambridge United to maintain a six-point lead at the top of League One.

However, the Blues boss remained disappointed with aspects of his in-form team’s Fratton Park performance, particularly their first-half showing.

The Blues only kicked into life when Danny Andrews’ header opened the scoring for Cambridge United on 39 minutes - with Mousinho believing they deserved to fall behind.

But, crucially, the response had him applauding his table-toppers.

He told The News: ‘We thoroughly deserved it over the 90 minutes.

‘There were massive positives, particularly in the second half, but also a lot of areas to improve. After a bright start 5-10 minutes in the game when on the front foot, we were off it for large parts of the first half and I was really disappointed.

‘By the time Cambridge went a goal up, that’s what they deserved. Certainly we deserved nothing other than being a goal down.

‘All of a sudden we sparked into life and, after that, got the equaliser. After that we looked the more likely side to score and in the second half the lads were excellent and thoroughly deserved to get those two goals and win the game.

‘It is probably being slightly greedy, but we just need to be better across the 90 minutes. The two halves were so contrasting. I can live with it when we’re not quite at it and not 100 per cent at the races, but we need to be close to our best rather than as poor as we were in the first half.

‘It’s something we know we’re not going to get away with. We did that particularly over the Christmas period, waiting to go a goal down and not being able to kick into gear to win the game.

‘It's not something which has happened recently, which is great, but it happened again on Tuesday night.

‘Fine because we won the game, but we just want to make sure that, from a mentality point of view, we start games like that and play for the first 45 minutes like we did in the second half.’

Goals from Kusini Yengi, Myles Peart-Harris and Abu Kamara completed the Blues’ victory.

And it was yet another example of Mousinho’s men coming from behind to claim all three points - a recurring habit this season.

He added: ‘I am frustrated when those things happen, but calm because I know the lads have that capability to be able to do it.

‘We are not always going to be able to control games and go a goal ahead, as much as we would like it.

‘I would just much prefer we do that after a game like Wycombe, where we played pretty well. Wycombe got a goal from a set-piece, we didn't deserve to go behind, and then came back into it.’