‘I got it wrong’: Portsmouth boss accepts blame for QPR day of Championship shame

The Blues boss admitted he didn’t see the 6-1 Loftus Road thrashing coming, as Blues supporters vented their fury on the boss and his team for their shocking display.

But Mousinho insisted he didn’t feel his decision to play Ebou Adams as a number 10 with John Swift deployed deeper was at the heart of the factors behind the battering.

The annihilation in west London goes down as a low ebb for Mousinho’s managerial tenure, with the spectre of relegation hanging over his team with eight games to go.

The Blues head coach explained the thinking behind his selection and tactical decisions on a bleak, bleak day in the capital.

When asked about his team selection, Mousinho said: ‘We’ve struggled for goals in the past few weeks, but what we’ve done really well is build out from the back and got the ball into certain wide areas and crossed the ball into the box, but not had that goalscoring threat.

‘I think Ebou as a 10 gives you a bit more impetus going into the box. He doesn’t drop underneath it, he wants to get into the box and he wants to threaten.

‘Obviously there’s parts of team selection I’ve clearly not got right - I’ll look at that.

‘We could have swapped them around, but I do think that doesn’t make a huge difference to the scoreline.

‘We’re talking about a midfield three with incredible experience, who’ve been incredible players throughout their careers. They’ve played in those positions in their career, but I’ve clearly at some point got it wrong.

‘There’s no issue with (accepting) that, but I didn’t come away from the game thinking that’s a real glaring issue.’

Pompey’s shambolic display was summed up by the three goals conceded in 17 first-half minutes, with things not improving after the break.

Despite a six-game winless run Mousinho’s side have broadly been performing well, meaning the head coach didn’t see such an insipid display emerging.

He added: ‘We set the team up in a certain way, playing as we did, we thought that would be enough for us to win the game. It obviously wasn’t, it was the complete opposite.

‘We have to take a bit of time which we’ve got now.

‘It’s by far the worst performance we’ve put in for a long, long time - I didn’t see it coming.

‘I didn’t see it coming off the back of where we’ve been in pretty much every game between new year and now.

‘We’ve either won the game, put in a good performance or just fell short because we didn’t do things, mainly in the final third, well.

‘Today wasn’t that, we were just very poor on the day - and ultimately got punished.’