'The bite is back': Proud Portsmouth boss hails gutsy Blues' best goal of the season amid battling Derby point
Pompey remain one place above the Championship relegation zone after a fighting 1-1 draw at Derby
John Mousinho applauded the return of Pompey’s bite - and their best goal of their season - during a battling point at Derby.
The struggling Blues sought to build on last weekend’s crucial 2-1 victory over Blackburn and did so with a 1-1 draw which had the visiting fans singing ‘We are staying up’ after the final whistle.
Callum Lang earned Pompey a sixth-minute lead when he capped off a lovely flowing move involving Colby Bishop and Josh Murphy.
However, on the stroke of half-time, Derby levelled when an Hayden Matthews own goal finished off Joe Ward’s right-wing cross from close range.
Yet the Blues dug in and survived the last 15 minutes of the match to claim a deserved point which delighted their head coach.
Mousinho told The News: ‘It was a decent point in the end. First of all, we had to stop the rot away from home - which is really important having not picked up results on the road recently - and backing up the winning performance last week.
‘Overall, it was a really, really positive performance. We had to dig in towards the back end, but I thought we were good value for a point.
‘We haven’t done anything particularly different from what we’ve been doing all season, but we had a good start away from home at the beginning of the year with a win away at Oxford and a couple of good points, but that has drifted away.
‘That has drifted away after the international breaks and we were probably a bit too easy at times to play against, but we stood up well against a Derby side who were excellent from set-pieces, much, much bigger than us, with much more aggression historically.
‘We’ve probably not always shown that grit this season, but, ultimately, when you’re in the position we are in, there’s going to be times when we definitely haven't done that.
‘There’s a couple of away games where we certainly haven’t done that - and probably a couple of home games.
‘Take the last 10-15 minutes, when we dug in and had to defend, but for the majority of the game, particularly for the first half-hour of the second half, we were excellent and played some really good football.’
With four changes to the side which beat Blackburn, Colby Bishop was restored up front, Lang switched to the right wing, while Mark Kosznovszky came in for John Swift in the centre of midfield.
Mousinho added: ‘What pleased me most was the way we actually played football.
‘The goal itself was probably the best we’ve scored this season, although then we actually struggled a bit in the first half before really settling down.
‘Derby’s goal came against the run of play during a really disappointing spell going in at half-time, but we came out and showed a huge amount of composure, probably for two thirds of the pitch.
‘In the final third we didn’t quite have it, it’s something we really need to work on because footballing-wse I thought it was a really good performance.’