John Mousinho hails Portsmouth response in win at 10-man Burton

Posted Wednesday, November 29, 2023 by PA

Portsmouth head coach John Mousinho was thrilled with his side’s performance after they returned to winning ways with a 2-0 victory at 10-man Burton.

Mousinho was looking for a response after Saturday’s 4-0 home defeat to Blackpool and he got it thanks to Colby Bishop’s first-half penalty and Alex Robertson’s second-half finish – his first senior goal.

“With the context of everything that has happened over the past few days, with the blow to morale that we took on Saturday, the question was asked after the game ‘is this just a blip?’” the former Brewers midfielder said.

“I asked them for a solid grown-up performance where they had to show a lot of mettle and they did that in pretty much everything they did barring a 10-minute spell.”

Bishop failed to appear for the second half after picking up an ankle injury late in the first half.

“That is probably the only negative to come out of the game. I saw it right in front of me, he just went over on his ankle.

“It has swollen up. He tried to play on but couldn’t put any weight on it. He turns over his ankle, there is nothing we can about it, the pitch is fine, it wasn’t a bad challenge, just bad luck.”

Mousinho was delighted with Manchester City loanee Robertson getting off the mark as well.

He said: “I thought he was our best player on Saturday, shining light in a poor performance, and our best player again tonight.

“The only criticism I’ve had of him is the final (end) product and he has put it together tonight.”

Burton boss Dino Maamria was pleased with his side’s effort but felt they contributed to their own downfall at two crucial moments.

“We shot ourselves in the foot twice,” he observed.

“It is very harsh. I thought for 37 minutes we were well on top of the game and asking them questions. Their keeper made an unbelievable save from KB [Kwadwo Baah].

“We make a bad, bad decision where we give them the easiest penalty ever and when you give a team like Portsmouth a leg up, when you don’t need to, it is always going to make it difficult.”

Despite a strong start to the second half, Maamria saw his side threaten without finding the crucial equaliser before Pompey picked the Brewers off when Mark Helm and Kwadwo Baah collided with each other.

“The second goal came after we started the second half on the front foot and we were parked in their last third. We couldn’t get that goal and they scored from a transition,” he said.

Steve Seddon’s late sending off for a second bookable offence added to Maamria’s frustrations despite a positive response to Saturday’s defeat at Peterborough.

He added: “At two-nil and with a sending off it is game over when you give those teams as easy goals as we have but I have no complaints about the performance because I thought that was excellent.”