'We got what we deserved': Portsmouth boss John Mousinho blasts players after Reading inflict Carabao Cup upset
Pompey were eliminated from the Carabao Cup in the first round by Reading
John Mousinho blasted his players after a Carabao Cup humbling and admitted: ‘We got what we deserved’.
League One Reading inflicted a shock 2-1 defeat tonight and thoroughly deserved to progress into the competition’s second round.
Noel Hunt’s men scored twice in four first-half minutes to lay the platform for victory, with Pompey debutant Tayo Singerr’s 93rd-minute goal proving to be a consolation.
Having made 10 changes and handed out three debuts in his starting XI, it wasn’t the performance the Blues boss had anticipated from his much changed-side, who registered a first Fratton Park loss since mid-March
And afterwards he criticised his team’s display in front of a 14,525 crowd.
Mousinho told The News: ‘I’m very disappointed with the performance and the result. I thought we got what we deserve, overall we just weren’t good enough.
‘We have to prioritise the league, that’s the most important thing for us and, at the minute, we have a squad that, if we lose a couple of those front-line players, is definitely going to weaken us.
‘So we looked at protecting quite a few of those that played at the weekend - and the bigger game for us is obviously Norwich at home on Saturday.
‘I also thought we could put out an XI that was strong enough to win the game - and I was proven wrong. Ultimately, I still look at the 11 players on the pitch and think they should all be competitive Championship players and able to deal with the situation.
‘We kept Swiftie and made that deliberate change at half-time and brought Doz on, it was a good exercise for both of them, that was the one position we didn’t have quite enough players to fill in.
‘But four of the five substitutes which came on were also relatively experienced pros in terms of minutes and exposure to the league. We definitely thought we had a strong-enough squad to win the game.
‘We expected to win. I look at performances objectively, it’s always hard sometimes when the result doesn’t go your way, but I don’t think we can come away from that and think “We were unlucky”. We got what we deserved.
‘These players are going to have to be ready because we aren’t going to be able to rely on 10 or 11 players for the entire season. Players are going to have to step up quickly and be ready. It’s a good lesson for a few of them.’
There were maiden starts for Mark Kosznovszky, Ibane Bowat and Luke Le Roux, while Yang Minhyeok was also in Mousinho’s line-up following his appearance off the bench at the Kassam Stadium.
Other starters included Ben Killip, Zak Swanson, Hayden Matthews, Jacob Farrell, Terry Devlin and Thomas Waddingham.
Yet it still wasn’t enough to secure victory over a side which had previously lost both of their opening League One fixtures, having failed to score a goal.
Mousinho added: ‘After going a goal down, the heads went down and it was a quick-fire second. It could have been a third actually, we just didn’t deal with the conditions well enough.
‘The second goal probably summed up where we were as a side, it was a longer ball clipped out to the right-back, we lost the battle in the middle of the park and then we lost the battle with the big centre-forward.
‘Every time you lose individual battles at any level, you are going to lose games, it’s very, very simple.’