John Mousinho content with Portsmouth performance despite draw at Cambridge

Posted Wednesday, October 25, 2023 by PA

Manager John Mousinho was happy with Portsmouth’s display despite their six-game winning run in League One ending after a goalless draw at Cambridge.

The U’s, now winless in eight league games themselves, produced an impressive display to earn a point.

Mousinho said: “I thought we played really well.

“My overall feeling is that I’m very, very pleased with the performance. Obviously we’d have liked to have won the game but this is a tough place to come and Cambridge aren’t a bad side.

“So long as we go and follow that up with positive performances and hopefully results then it’ll be a good point.

“I think you earn the right to take a point from these places by winning some of those games we’ve won.

“The important thing was to come away and not concede late from one of those set-pieces or one of the breaks when we were really trying to go and win the game. The intent from us was obviously to go and win the game.

“It’s nice I suppose to preserve the unbeaten run because these can be very, very tricky ones.

“I’ve done this many times in my career when you come away to a side that’s decent and has a really good home record and something goes wrong, so I’m really pleased with the boys.”

Cambridge assistant boss Barry Corr was on media duties and was delighted with the response to a poor defeat at Cheltenham on Saturday.

He said: “Everybody put in such a shift. That has to be the minimum.

“Maybe we lacked a tiny little bit of quality in the final moment, maybe that might have been a bit of (from) putting so much into our out-of-possession work, but I think that will come.

“That has to be a baseline for our performances, that has to be what a Cambridge United performance looks like. We can build on that from there.

“Everybody’s seen Digger’s (Paul Digby) like a man possessed, chasing after them, jump-pressing their centre-halves.

“It was so much energy and I think the supporters thrived off it as well and it got an atmosphere going.

“We had quite a good conversation, all the staff and players, and we talked about what our performances need to look like.

“We can’t always control whether we win or lose but we can control the way we commit ourselves to the game.

“You’ve seen that. We’ve defended our box really, really well. Every single player on the pitch put in a really good defensive performance without the ball.

“When you control that type of commitment and aggression, results tend to follow.”