'The best performance in my time with Portsmouth': Fratton Park boss hails stunning Ipswich triumph
The Blues are now 19th in the Championship after a crucial win over Ipswich
John Mousinho surveyed a huge victory over Premier League-hunting Ipswich and admitted: That was the best performance of my time at Fratton Park.
The Blues netted twice in 130 seconds through Conor Shaughnessy and Colby Bishop during a stunning end to the first half against Kieran McKenna’s men.
That proved decisive, with the 2-0 triumph representing a huge stride forward in their ongoing battle to avoid a return to League One, lifting them into 19th.
Since arriving as head coach in January 2023, Mousinho has overseen 168 games, including a League One title.
Yet he credits the Ipswich outcome as topping every other result he has achieved in his three-and-a-half years on the south coast.
He told The News: ‘In the moment, it feels like probably the best performance we have put together in my time here.
‘You look at all the circumstances, everything which has occurred this year, this week, the last 6-8 weeks, and the importance of the game was so big. So to show up like we did tonight, it does feel like that.
‘There have obviously been some huge games we’ve had here, but, with the pressure on as it was, I thought it was right up there.
‘There’s a bit of recency bias to that, obviously. But we’ve felt the pressure severely as a club and as a team over the past few weeks and we’ve felt the need to bounce back after the QPR game.
‘And to do it tonight off the back of Saturday was very special.’
With Blackburn losing 3-0 tonight at Southampton, Pompey are now four points clear of the relegation zone with four matches remaining.
They are now ahead of Rovers on goal difference, with West Brom, Oxford United and Leicester also below them.
In addition, Mousinho’s men have now closed the gap on 18th-placed Charlton to one point, potentially dragging Nathan Jones’ side into the relegation battle.
He added: ‘It has been frustrating because I do genuinely believe we have put in good performances here at home since the turn of the year.
‘We’ve had the difference between West Brom and Sheffield United and putting the ball into the back of the net. We were caught on the counter against United and the same against Hull, they have been disappointing.
‘Apart from Swansea, every home performance has been good, but tonight was a bit different.
‘We mixed it when we needed to, we had a side which wanted to play, which probably suited us to a certain extent, and we could press when we needed to press. The second half was a bit more about sitting and being very, very solid as a group.
‘We showed different sides to our team that perhaps we haven’t had for the majority of the season.’