‘The worst thing in football’: The sobering Portsmouth warning dampening Championship survival optimism

And the Pompey boss warned his players over the dangers of complacency ahead of QPR, after finally putting some daylight between themselves and the second-tier trapdoor.

Back-to-back league wins and powerful home form have combined to see a seven-point gap open up between the Blues and the bottom three.

That has seen optimism build over Pompey staying up this season, after their return to the level for the first time in 12 years.

Mousinho is guarding against that belief spilling over into the realms of overconfidence with 13 games to go.

He said: ‘We’ve spoken about the difficulties we’ve faced this year, but this is a really important stage for us in the season.

‘This is probably the first time it’s felt like there’s some breathing space between us and the bottom three - but I can guarantee you that there is no breathing space there. The league can flip over in the blink of an eye, most weeks there are nine points available in the Championship.

‘The key thing is we take confidence from where we are, but by no means do we rest on our laurels. There’s a huge way to go still and we have to be very realistic about that and protect against the worst thing in football, which is thinking you’ve cracked it and achieved something.

‘You don’t achieve anything at this stage of the season, we’ll have a look at the league table in May and that will be the real indicator of where are.’

Mousinho lifted the lid on the dressing room message he’s been stressing to his players, even in the immediate aftermath of last weekend’s win over Oxford United.

A clear focus on enjoying success but not getting giddy over victories was relayed, with that mantra continuing into the build-up to their Fratton return.

Mousinho added: ‘It’s been the message this week (not getting carried away), it was the message straight after the game.

‘I don’t want to dampen down wins, but what we’ve tried to do this season when we’ve lost games is not be too low and think it’s the end of the world. When we win games we enjoy them and take confidence from them, but we don’t get too carried away and think this is brilliant.

‘On to the next one’

‘We speak about it a lot internally, no one gets promoted or relegated now. You can enjoy it and celebrate with the fans, but it’s job done and on to the next one.

‘Trust me, QPR don’t care about how elated we might’ve been after the past couple of games - as much as we think the same. We’ve got the same approach to their game to their win against Derby, so it’ll be two teams going at each other.’

READ MORE: What they’ve been waiting for: the massive boost to Portsmouth survival hopes against QPR