Portsmouth boss responds to fears over future as Norwich City and West Brom hunt new managers

And the Blues boss has made it clear he wants to stay at Fratton Park and build an exciting long-term future for the club, after securing their place in the second tier.

Mousinho’s statement comes with his standing hitting a new high, after following League One title success with keeping his team up at the first time of asking with two games to spare.

Both Norwich City and West Brom are hunting new head coaches, after Johannes Hoff Thorup and Tony Mowbray were sacked in recent days.

That’s got Pompey fans fearing there will be interest in their boss, whose standing is on the rise after the runaway success of his Fratton tenure.

In a clear response to those concerns, Mousinho has stated he wants to stay put at PO4 and repay the faith shown in him by the club’s owners and backing from Pompey fans.

When asked about the vacant Norwich City and West Brom positions, Mousinho said: ‘Genuinely, my mindset is I’d like to have a long, successful career at Portsmouth.

‘I still feel incredibly grateful to the club for taking a chance on me and a risk on me in the first place. I’ll never forget that.

‘We can talk about my ambitions and the club’s ambitions matching up in the future, but this is a club that went and took a risk on me that no one else did.

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‘People said they didn’t know who I am and that’s fine, but Portsmouth took that risk on me.

‘Hopefully people can see that it’s paid off so far, but it’s only two-and-a-half years.

‘I think everyone, including myself, is very excited about building on that.

‘Portsmouth fans have been through the mill and it can’t have been easy supporting this club at times, but the level of support we’ve had is incredible.

‘It wouldn’t have been easy being soundly beaten at Stoke, Derby, Bristol City and West Brom but they’ve stuck with us.

‘This is just focussed on Portsmouth and this is no disrespect to any other clubs, but this is a very special place to play and incredibly special place to coach.’

Pompey boss Mousinho: ‘I think we’ll keep that going’

Mousinho could scarcely contain his excitement and made no effort to hide his enthusiasm about the continuing project at Pompey, along with sporting director Rich Hughes.

That has swung on staying in the Championship, which the head coach now believes give the Blues a real opportunity to establish themselves moving forwards.

He added: ‘There’s that alignment there, in terms of what we’re trying to achieve.

‘I’m incredibly excited about what we can do as a football club, I think this is now a brilliant opportunity.

‘It was so, so important for us to stay in the league. It wouldn’t have been disastrous from the club’s perspective, we weren’t about to fold the next day if we went down - but it would’ve felt like that to me if we’d not managed to stay in the league.

‘It was so important for us to do that and it gives us some greater scope to build again as a Championship club.

‘I just find that incredibly exciting and I find it exciting working here, so I think we’ll keep that going.’

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