Pompey v Stevenage: John Mousinho's pre-match verdict

The News, Portsmouth

Pompey head coach John Mousinho talks to The News ahead of Saturday's League On trip to the Lamex Stadium.

Transcript

00:00 So Jon, obviously Steven is your way this weekend against Steve Evans and they've had

00:05 a good start to the season haven't they?

00:07 Yeah, really good start, not really surprising I think considering the end they had to last

00:11 year and the momentum they built at the back end of last season.

00:14 You know obviously deserved winners of promotion from League 2 and they've hit the ground running

00:19 this year and Steve Evans has got really good organised sides at this level, he knows exactly

00:25 what he's doing, he's had a side promoted out of this league as well.

00:28 So yeah, comes with bags of experience and a very well organised side that's scored quite

00:31 a few goals as well so fair play to them, I think they're doing really well and it's

00:35 going to be a tough test for us.

00:36 I suppose you've come across them a few times in your career?

00:38 Yeah plenty, I think a couple of times as a player and then as a player coach a few

00:43 times over the past few seasons with his Gillingham sides in particular.

00:47 I know players that have played under him as well and I've just seen plenty of his sides

00:52 over the years.

00:53 He's had a really successful Crawley side coming through the leagues, that Rotherham

00:58 team that he had also coming through the divisions, highly successful and he's doing it again

01:01 with Stevenage.

01:02 So yeah a lot of respect I think for the whole coaching staff there, one that I know pretty

01:08 well across the board but certainly coaches and staff have done very, very well.

01:14 What's he like?

01:15 Steve?

01:16 Steve's absolutely great, Steve has got his massive, massive personality in the game and

01:24 I'm hugely animated on the sidelines but any time you do speak to him away from the buzz

01:31 of the game, really, really great guy, good character, very, very intelligent and an excellent

01:37 coach, you don't have the career that he's had without being as good as he is.

01:40 So yeah very much after the game looking forward to sitting down and having a chat with him.

01:44 And of course Louis Thompson as well?

01:45 Yeah Louis has really come back to the fold I think with Stevenage and we know that he's

01:51 capable of good things at this level.

01:52 He played a good part in my last 23 games last season and played plenty of times, had

01:59 plenty of minutes and did pretty well.

02:01 Probably one of those that was just a bit unlucky to not force his way into the side

02:03 last year and we were really happy to shake hands at the back end of last year and send

02:07 him on his way to past his new where we think he's going to play 40, 46 league games if

02:12 possible.

02:13 So yeah pleased for Louis, not too pleased for him because we don't want him to perform

02:17 too well at the weekend but apart from that wishing him all the best.

02:20 Was it a difficult decision not to offer him a new deal?

02:22 It was because I think part of us would have liked selflessly to keep Louis around but

02:27 ultimately the question for him was do you want to play 30 to 40 to 50 games next year

02:34 and I think the answer was yes and we didn't want to hold him back.

02:38 The answer from us probably was it's not going to be here, we'd love to have him around as

02:42 a really good character and as a squad player but ultimately I think the best thing for

02:46 him and the best thing for the football club is for him to go and do what he's done this

02:48 year and he's done it really well.

02:50 People have talked about how influential he was off the pitch.

02:57 Yeah really good character, great to have around the dressing room and one of those

03:00 senior leaders, he's played for a long, long time now and he's seen most things so yeah

03:05 he was always good to lean on and kept his attitude brilliant all the way through even

03:10 when he wasn't playing games and was probably a bit unlucky to not be playing games he was

03:13 really good to have around the place.

03:15 I'm not laughing at Louis Thompson there.

03:22 I'm slightly concerned about your health and I hope this goes out as well.

03:28 You can't edit this out.

03:29 Team news, that's all I'm going to say, team news.

03:32 What's the situation?

03:33 Yeah we've got a clean bill of health apart from all of the lads that we know about long

03:37 term so Paddy's come back, he was absolutely fine after the game on Tuesday.

03:45 We've got Tom Lowry who's had surgery and the surgery went well as we spoke about last

03:49 week, he's been back in the building today for the first time after just spending a week

03:52 at home so yeah we're still looking at that 12 week period for Tom.

03:57 Cassini's a week into his 6-8 week rehab, still in the boot, making sure we protect

04:00 the ankle ligaments but good signs from him and then finally the one that we haven't updated

04:05 on yet is Josh Dockrell who had successful ACL surgery.

04:09 Unfortunately for him it's not going to cut down the time he has to spend on the physio

04:13 bed but we're still looking at 7-9 months for him.

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