Portsmouth boss responds to jibes over financial might which ‘blows away’ rivals in promotion chase with Bolton Wanderers, Derby County, Peterborough United & Co

John Mousinho laughed off talk Pompey’s financial muscles ‘blows away’ their League One rivals.

And the Blues boss underlined having greater resources than the opposition is no guarantee of success, as he aims to plot a course to the Championship.

Mousinho has responded to the suggestion from Stevenage boss Steve Evans his playing budget ‘blows away 90 per cent of teams in this division’.

Evans launched an epic rant after the 2-1 New Year’s Day defeat from his side which framed Pompey as heavy financial hitters this season.

The head coach stated he’s aware of his club’s standing in the third-tier hierarchy when it comes to the money at his disposal, but he wasn’t interested in getting involved in a to-and-fro argument over the details.

He said of the view over Pompey's budget: ‘First of all, I don’t care! It doesn’t affect us. The only things we can influence is what we do in the building, so all the external noise is exactly that.

‘We’ve got a rough idea of where our budget sits in the league. It’s nothing we like to speak about openly, the only thing we consider to be as a club is really well funded by the owners and ultimately fans who pay to come through the door.

‘That (budget talk) is for other people to speak about. We’re never going to moan about other clubs and where their budget, whether it’s big or small. That happens in football.

‘Me personally, I fought against the salary cap, because I didn’t think it was particularly befitting of the Football League pyramid in this country to have the same budget.

‘I think it’s one of the benefits of football in this country, and where we sit in that doesn’t make a difference to me.

‘The biggest takeaway from it is plenty of teams have had big budgets at this level and not succeeded. Plenty of teams have had smaller budgets and done really well. I’ve been part of one of those when Burton ended up getting promoted from this level, so it is possible.

‘Having money doesn’t guarantee you anything, we see that up and down the football pyramid all the time. I think the most important part is to spend money well when possible and take care of things internally.

‘We know where we are in terms of budget, we know where we are in terms of what we want to do at the football club and how we want to make ourselves as sustainable as possible. That’s all we really care about going forward.’

Mousinho has underlined a conviction he will be backed by the club’s owners in this transfer window, should the right opportunities present themselves. The 37-year-old feels his engagement with board to date points to that being the case.

He said: ‘As far as I’m concerned every time we’ve asked for something from the board we’ve always been sensible, but the board has always said “no problem, let’s get on with making this club better”.’