Portsmouth boss lavishes praise on surprise new supporter favourite after shining against Middlesbrough
The Senegal defender made his fifth Blues appearance since his deadline day arrival
John Mousinho gushed over the Championship impact of Madiodio Dia and urged supporters to ‘put it into context’.
With the Blues again opting to rest Conor Shaughnessy to enable him to feature against Ipswich on Tuesday night, they again turned to the Senegal defender as his deputy.
Middlesbrough marked only a third start in English football for the 22-year-old since arriving on transfer deadline day - and he produced his best performance in a Blues shirt to date.
Certainly many of the Pompey faithful were hugely impressed with Dia in Saturday’s 10 win, having pushed ahead of Ibane Bowat, Hayden Matthews and, now fit-again, Josh Knight as back up to Shaughnessy and Regan Poole.
And Mousinho believes the former FC Haugesund man deserves immense credit considering the circumstances.
‘Then you have to take into account the context’
He told The News: ‘We selected Jojo to manage Shocks, making sure we now have Shocks available for Tuesday - and I thought he was superb.
‘Just adding context of what we are asking Jojo to do, we signed him on deadline day, he hasn’t played since November, it was his first full season out in Norway.
‘Then we’ve asked him to go Norwich away and Middlesbrough away and play against some of the best attacking players in the league - and he dealt with it pretty well.
‘An objective view of looking at him is saying I think that’s a really good performance - then you have to take into account the context.
‘I didn't notice him defensively, which was really positive. In David Strelec and Tommy Conway, you have two players who can do pretty much everything, they can run in behind, drop in short, receive the ball, cause all sorts of problems.
‘Particularly early on when they wanted to stretch us a couple of times when Jojo got back in, but he was really aggressive, he was on the front foot, he won his headers.
‘He didn’t have much to do in possession, as we would normally like, but he defended very well.’
Winning at the Riverside Stadium with their only shot on target
Pompey’s decisive goal was their first shot on target, arriving from their second corner of the game, reflecting Middlesbrough’s dominance.
Indeed, the Blues spent almost the entire second half defending deep, with the odd counter attack, including the crucial 97th-minute corner won by substitute Milli Alli.
Mousinho admits the visitors’ approach wasn’t pretty, yet, with Championship survival at stake, he wanted them to be hard to beat at the Riverside Stadium.
Instead it turned out to be a dramatic victory - thanks to Conor Chaplin.
‘It’s not the beautiful game, but you just have to do it’
He added: ‘First of all, it’s really difficult to prepare against a side like this, you'd have those two options there. Firstly, are you going to go all out on the press and risk getting exposed in behind?
‘Or are you going to be a bit more solid - like we were on Saturday - and obviously Middlesbrough have good players who can pick you apart. There was also the difficulty of knowing what shape Middlesbrough are going to play, whether it’s a back three or a back four.
‘We wanted to try to make it as frustrating as possible. It's not what I love to do, but you come away to a side as good as Middlesbrough and we have to kill the game a bit, slow things down, we’ve got to make sure we take our time for throws.
‘It’s not the beautiful game, but, when you are against a side as good as Middlesbrough, you just have to do it.’