John Mousinho hits out at Portsmouth critics dismissing side as one of worst Championship’s seen
Pompey are flying up the Championship on a six-game unbeaten run, but have attracted flak for the manner of doing so. John Mousinho gives his response today.
John Mousinho dismissed the Pompey knockers slamming his side’s approach as they surge up the Championship.
The Blues boss insisted his focus is on winning games over earning plaudits, as detractors line up to criticise his team’s style of play.
Mousinho on criticism over style of play: ‘My job is to win games’
And Mousinho believes his men are showing they can do that in different ways, as they employ a variety of tactical approaches on their way to delivering results.
Pompey are now six league games unbeaten and have suffered just a single loss in their past 10 outings - a run which has seen them push towards the play-offs.
Mousinho’s men have seen some flak come their way on that run, with it becoming a regular pattern to see rivals fanbases criticise their style of play and suggest Pompey are among the worst teams they’ve seen at the level.
Swansea boss Vitor Matos added his opinions on the Blues this week after his side’s 3-1 loss at Fratton Park, branding his opponents ‘physical’, ‘direct’ and ‘sometimes too extreme’.
Mousinho gave such talk short shrift, however, as he does what’s required to get results.
He said: ‘In all honesty, we need to take care of our own business and make sure we’re not affected by any external noise. That’s whether it’s managers, fans or whatever it is.
‘We set sides up to try to win games, that’s my job.
‘My job isn’t to have anything stylistically beautiful on my CV - my job is to win games.
‘Ironically if you look at the Swansea game, I’ve taken a lot of stick this season for overplaying.
‘We’ve done that because we think it’s the best way to win football games.
‘If you look at the season so far, Swansea was the most direct we’ve been. It wasn’t by far the most direct we’ve been, but it was in response to how Swansea pressed.
‘If they’d sat off and let us have the ball it would’ve been different, so we had to break them down a different way.
‘We looked a little bit at the blueprint of what QPR did to Swansea. They went with a narrow front four and (Richard) Kone on the day was unplayable.
‘There were some similarities between those two games.
‘It’s a really interesting one. I genuinely didn’t think the Swansea game was overly physical either, I didn’t see players being anything other than honest trying to win the ball - that was on both sides. Swansea aren’t any shrinking violets, that’s for sure.’
Mousinho highlighted how Pompey have employed different tactics to deliver results, with a more expansive game employed at times this term.
That was underlined by the Blues being up to sixth in the divisional possession rankings last week, with their head coach looking to adapt the way his side plays.
Mousinho added: ‘The other week the question was based around how we’d edged up to sixth in the league for possession.
'I want to be able to play both ways.
‘I go back to the best sides I’ve seen in my time - they were not a soft touch. I grew up in the 90s when the best side were Manchester United. They were ruthless and had Roy Keane in the middle of the park, he didn’t stand for anything.
'So I think it’s a good balance to have both sides of the game.’