John Mousinho shrugs off Portsmouth 'desperation and despair' - and delivers survival rallying cry
The Blues have taken one point and scored four times in their last six Championship matches
John Mousinho waded through the ‘desperation and despair’ engulfing Pompey’s Championship future and insisted: I believe in the players.
With the QPR debacle still lingering in the minds of the Fratton faithful, the Blues head into a crucial Easter weekend to face Norwich (Good Friday) and then Oxford United.
With one point from six matches, Pompey’s results have imploded at precisely the wrong time, leaving them out of form, robbed of momentum and positioned just one point above the relegation zone.
The head coach is adamant, however, that his players performed ‘consistently’ in the three months before the 6-1 humiliation at Loftus Road.
And he has every faith his team will bounce back from that body blow and spark a late-season resurgence - starting at Carrow Road.
‘It does feel like there is a lot of desperation and despair’
Mousinho told The News: ‘We've had really poor results in the last six games, so it does feel like there is a lot of desperation and despair.
‘Ultimately, though, we are a point above the relegation zone with a game in hand, despite having not won in six and taken a point. There are tough games coming up, every single game is a tough game, I have to get that one straight.
‘We know that because we've played games at home, winnable games, and we’ve lost them. We’ve gone away to some of the best sides in the league and won and competed and played very well.
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‘Over the past three months, I have seen this side consistently perform very well at the level. We dipped in terms of our performance level significantly at QPR, but, prior to that, we have been very, very unlucky in certain games.
‘I know there’s obviously the fact that results haven’t been great and I am never going to hide behind that - but I stick to my assertion that, post-Bristol City, our performance levels have been very good.
‘The players we have in the building have produced for us, they have produced for us over the past few weeks, they have produced for us over the past few months.
‘It’s just a case of us trying to find some of that form and put some of the demons of QPR to bed, making sure we produce performances over the next eight games to keep us in the league.’
Training ground absences through International call-ups
The Blues’ training ground has been without Terry Devlin, Adrian Segecic, Gustavo Caballero, Makenzie Kirk and, latterly, Milli Alli during the international break.
Nonetheless, for a team left shell-shocked by that QPR hammering, it has offered a vital opportunity to regroup and reassess their approach towards keeping Pompey in the Championship.
And Mousinho is adamant the club remain in control of their own destiny with eight fixtures remaining.
He added: ‘It is in our hands. The situation is exactly that, we have to be positive about the situation, but also realistic that sides down at the bottom are going to win games.
‘We have seen that over the past few weeks, there are going to be some sides who are mid-table and will probably lose the impetus towards the back-end of the season because they are not fighting for anything.
‘My experience of football over the past 20 years of being in the game is that, at this stage of the season, it coughs up some really, really strange results, particularly with sides at the bottom winning games.
‘We have to be one of those, we have to pick up results. We probably have to pick up back-to-back results and we’ve got to get enough points to see us safe.
‘We’ve got eight games to go, there are plenty of points to play for, and we have to pick up as many as possible.’