- 3 months ago
John Mousinho talks to the media ahead of Pompey's home game against Sheffield Wednesday. Yet the Blues' draw at Southampton remains part of the agenda, with the Pompey manager providing an update on the injury Nicolas Schmid picked up against Saints.
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00:00I don't know. Honestly, I didn't think there was much in it at all. I thought it was just a handshake.
00:06Maybe both went in slightly hard, a good bit of rivalry. But yeah, I don't know.
00:11I think a lot's been made of it. But yeah, there was nothing in it.
00:13How are Conor and Nico doing? Obviously, quite a rough collision with Tom Fellows on Sunday.
00:19Yeah, Conor's OK. We're going to see how he is on Friday before we make a decision before the game on Saturday.
00:25He's 50-50 as whether he's going to play. Nico's picked up a fracture in his hand, as we predicted,
00:29as it looked like. We sort of pretty much knew that at half-time.
00:32So yeah, Nico's going to be out for an extended period.
00:34Probably had two stand-out performers on Sunday, Andre de Zell and Zach Swanson.
00:39How pleased are you with those two's performance?
00:41Yeah, I think the whole 11 were excellent.
00:44And if you look at individuals, Andre, from the first minute, very, very early on,
00:49hit the bar with the right-footed shot, non-stop in the middle of the park
00:52and becoming a very, very reliable part of our midfield.
00:54One that we play him for 90 minutes, we know exactly what we're going to get.
00:57He knows what we want from him and I think there's even more to come from Andre.
01:01And Zach, we've always been very, very positive about Zach,
01:03hence we wanted to keep him at the club, hence we wanted to give him a new contract
01:07a couple of years ago and we've taken up his option as well.
01:10So yeah, really happy with Zach's contribution so far.
01:12If Ogilvy doesn't feature on Saturday, is there potentially Jordan Williams coming at left-back?
01:18Looked very competent there when he came on Sunday against Southampton.
01:21Yeah, Jacob Farrell hasn't been in the squads recently, but Jacob is a very able deputy
01:27backing up at left-back.
01:28So we've got the option.
01:30We've got the option of Jordan Williams who came in and did very well.
01:32And yeah, there's also an option of changing shape as well.
01:35So we'll see what that's like.
01:36Going on to Saturday, Sheffield Wednesday, there's obviously a lot of noise around their
01:40club at the moment.
01:41What are you expecting from Henrik Pedransen's side?
01:43They've obviously not started the season too well, but they've also showed that they're
01:48up for a fight.
01:49Yeah, they're definitely up for a fight.
01:50You can see that.
01:51They knocked a very strong Leeds side out of the League Cup, came back from 2-0 down away
01:56against Wrexham, which is a side that clearly is at it and clearly wants to play.
02:00And they've been pretty unlucky, I think, in a lot of the league games so far.
02:03So I think there's obviously the situation at the football club at the moment, which clearly
02:09hasn't helped through the summer.
02:10But I still think if you look at the starting XI and some of the players that they've managed
02:14to put out on a weekly basis, it's a very, very dangerous championship side.
02:17Going on to the goalkeeper situation, is Ben Kalip going to keep his place?
02:21Or is Joe Bursick potentially in contention?
02:24Yeah, I think Ben's certainly done enough to warrant being on the bench in the first
02:28place.
02:29Joe's now been in the building for a few weeks and we're looking to have that healthy competition
02:33in the goalkeeper department.
02:34It's why we wanted to bring Joe in for situations like this and to compete in general anyway.
02:38But certainly, I think Ben deserves his starting shirt.
02:42Varnie, how much are you looking forward to being in front of the Fratton Park Corral after
02:46Sunday's big occasion?
02:48Yeah, I think it'll be brilliant.
02:49I think it feels like it's been a long time since we've been here.
02:52We had that long break after the Preston game, a long, long wait.
02:56So yeah, three-week wait altogether.
02:57And I think, especially after the game at the weekend, everybody's probably up to get
03:00back to Fratton.
03:01Thank you for your time, John.
03:02Good luck on Saturday.
03:02Cheers, thank you.
03:03How long would you expect Niko to be out for?
03:07It's a difficult one.
03:09We're hopeful we're going to not need surgery and I think that's just going to be dependent
03:13on an appointment next week.
03:14But we're still looking at about eight to 12 weeks altogether.
03:17So real blow.
03:19And yeah, it was a nasty collision and we knew at the time, we knew that there was a problem.
03:25Hence, obviously, we had to sub Niko and it looked even worse at half time.
03:28So yeah, that's going to be a bit of a blow.
03:30Is it a wrist or a finger?
03:32Just hand, hand.
03:33Hand?
03:33Yeah, neither.
03:35Okay.
03:37So you talked about the goalkeeper situation now.
03:40With Bursic, obviously, he's not been here too long.
03:42How has he been looking so far?
03:43Yeah, he's looked very good.
03:45I mean, Joe's come in.
03:46We wanted to bring Joe in.
03:48We don't necessarily have that defined order in the goalkeeping pecking order below having
03:54a number one.
03:56And Niko clearly is that at the moment.
03:57Although we want players to come in and challenge for that.
03:59And beyond that, we want to have players that are really competitive to make sure that they
04:03first of all push Niko.
04:04And should anything happen or should they show that real glimpse in form, then they're absolutely
04:09well in their rights to challenge for that number one spot.
04:13But also to be very, very competitive underneath.
04:15So Joe's done that since he's come in.
04:17I think he's provided real good competition.
04:19We've now got three really solid goalkeepers in behind Niko that we're comfortable playing
04:22at this level.
04:23And yeah, we'll see how that pans out.
04:25But with Niko out injured, would you register Jordan Archer in your squad now?
04:30Yeah, it's something we've thought about.
04:32And at the minute, we're not going to rush to make that decision because we're still going
04:36to say the weekend go with the two goalkeepers that we've got registered.
04:40We don't need to do anything at the minute, but it's certainly an option and one of the
04:42reasons we wanted to keep that spot open.
04:44How close is the battle between Ben and Joe?
04:47Yeah, it's close.
04:50They're two excellent goalkeepers and we wanted to have that competition.
04:55We don't necessarily, like I said, want to have those defined our definite number three,
04:58definite number two.
05:00And we want players to be competing for the spot.
05:02I thought Ben came in and did terrifically well at the weekend and deserves a starting spot.
05:07And, you know, we'll keep monitoring the situation.
05:10But that's like it with every position.
05:11It's not unique.
05:13Every single position that we have week in, week out.
05:15And we're always looking to have that competition from behind.
05:17We've only seen Ben in four games and he's done well in all four games.
05:21But he's got a reputation among some fans of criticising his kicking.
05:25Is that a bit harsh, would you say?
05:26Yeah, Ben's kicking is really good.
05:28At the weekend, I'm sure he was disappointed with a couple of those early kicks.
05:32But, you know, I did say on Sunday that he doesn't get a chance to actually warm up properly.
05:39And all of a sudden we're expecting him to kick the ball 80 yards and get it up the pitch
05:43in the atmosphere with the significance of the game.
05:46So, yeah, Ben's kicking.
05:48I'm sure we'll see that over the next few games is very good.
05:52Because he made his debut at Sheffield Wednesday.
05:53He did well.
05:54Then he came back here for Hull and a few miscue kicks.
05:56And suddenly he's regarded as being bad at kicking, isn't he?
05:59Yeah, no, honestly, he is.
06:00You know, you saw the Sheffield Wednesday game where his distribution was excellent.
06:05And he can definitely do it.
06:06Particularly as the game went on in the second half yesterday.
06:08Sorry, second half on Sunday.
06:10There was one that he did kick straight out of play in the second half.
06:14But that was Armstrong was standing about seven yards away from him.
06:16And the referee just hurried him up and hurried him up.
06:18And he ended up, I think, just going a bit too quickly on that one.
06:22But as the game went on, you could see he got, I think, a bit more involved and a bit warmer.
06:26And he'll be absolutely fine.
06:27The modern day goalkeeper has to be able to kick as well, of course.
06:29Yeah, Ben's, honestly, Ben's fine.
06:31That's one of the reasons we brought him into the football club.
06:33We're not quite as possession dominant as we would have been when we were in League One.
06:39But we still need the goalkeeper to distribute the ball really well.
06:41We've looked to really add that to the ball to the back end of the season and early this season as well.
06:46And we definitely need goalkeepers that come in and play.
06:49You mentioned about Conor Ogilvie, his neck.
06:52You say he's 50-50 this weekend?
06:54Yeah, he just hasn't quite settled down.
06:56And Conor's a tough, tough, tough guy.
06:59So for him to not have trained up until now, we know there's every chance that that's not quite right.
07:05And we'll see what that's like on Friday.
07:07We haven't seen much of Farrell either this season.
07:10How has he been training?
07:13Yeah, Jacob's been very good over the last couple of weeks.
07:15I think it took him a little bit of time to get back into the swing of things in pre-season.
07:20Bear in mind, he'd been out for pretty much the entirety of last season.
07:23He played one game in and around that.
07:27He was injured a huge amount.
07:28He had the recurring injury.
07:29And so if you look at that, I think that Sheffield United game must have been in September or October.
07:34So he hasn't played a minute of football since then.
07:36And it's just taken him a bit of time to get back into the swing of things.
07:38When you do that in the championship of all leagues, it's a very tough thing to do.
07:41But Jacob's coming back into it now and he's looking good.
07:43I suppose it's positive that since he came back pre-season, presumably he hasn't had any injury at all.
07:47No, Jacob's been fine. He's been fit for everything.
07:50How's he taken not being part of the squad recently?
07:52Yeah, he's been as good as I want him to be.
07:55I don't want him to be happy.
07:56I want him to be frustrated and I want him to be angry about not being part of the starting XI and not being part of the squad.
08:01And I want that to manifest itself as hard work in training and really getting back into the sort of form that we know we can get into.
08:09How's he been frustrated then?
08:10Yeah, yeah. If he wasn't, I'd be really disappointed.
08:13What can he give Pompey, though? Because he's a different sort of player to Conor Ogier, isn't he?
08:17Yeah, you know, we've seen it in glimpses.
08:20A load of energy up and down that left flank.
08:22And I think that he brings that real enthusiasm in terms of the way that he defends.
08:26And he gives you, by sheer energy and by pace and by the fact that he's got all that endeavour, a lot going forward as well.
08:33And a big part of his game, we wanted to make sure that in possession he really works on that aspect of his game.
08:38Making sure he's nice and tidy, making sure he can see those pictures early enough.
08:41And all round, I think, yeah, a very competent left back.
08:44How do you assess how your two centre-halves done this season?
08:46I think they've done very well.
08:48Again, Regan and Shox, both of them were out for long periods last year.
08:54Particularly Shox hardly played a game, so this is his first proper run of championship football, I would say.
09:00Regan had a little bit more of that last year, but was probably never quite at it off the back of that ACL injury.
09:05I think it just took him a while to get going.
09:07We had to throw him in a lot sooner than we would have liked to have thrown him in
09:09because of the injury problems that we had at the start of last season.
09:13And I think the pair of them have now adjusted to the level pretty well.
09:16I still want to have a huge emphasis on them improving and making sure we're better and better every game.
09:20But so far, I think they've been very good.
09:22How do you think they fit as a partnership?
09:25Connor said the other day that Regan's the best, his favourite centre-half to ever play with as well.
09:30Yeah, well, if you look at where we've been statistically with the pair of them,
09:34I think 15 games at the start of the League One season, we conceded 10 goals with the pair of them
09:38playing at centre-half, and we've continued in a similar vein this year.
09:41So, yeah, partnerships are really, really important all around the pitch.
09:45We'd want any of our centre-halves to be able to step in and slot in at any point,
09:48but they seem to have a very good understanding of each other, and they're forming a good partnership.
09:52Just shows the importance of having a settled defence, doesn't it?
09:55Yeah, and it's one thing we just couldn't do last year.
09:58We never actually managed to have a settled back four.
10:00There were so many changes because of injury and sometimes because of form,
10:03and, yeah, we could never quite nail that down.
10:05The one player that did nail down his spot was Connor Ogilvie,
10:08who I think played 45 of the 46 games.
10:09Apart from that, there were wild changes across those other three positions,
10:12and, yeah, that definitely didn't help.
10:14But three clean sheets in the first five games, that's stunning.
10:17Yeah, really good start, really good start.
10:19It feels like a progression, certainly from where we were at the start of last season.
10:24We want to be a lot more solid.
10:26We want to be harder to beat, and clean sheets are the sort of foundation
10:29that you can build from with football games.
10:32You give yourself half a chance if you keep a clean sheet.
10:35And we're trying to defend as an XI as well, not just as the two centre-halves,
10:39but certainly when the press is broken or when things don't quite go as to plan
10:42and we've got to defend costs into the box or defend shots,
10:45a pair of them have been exceptional.
10:46You mentioned about their injury records last season.
10:48Are you now being reassured that they're OK because they've come through pre-season as well?
10:52Yeah, you never feel 100% with any player because you always think
10:55there's a potential injury around the corner and we don't want to tempt fate,
10:58but at the minute they're fit and that's a real positive.
11:02Where did you go with these two at the start of the season?
11:04Based on pre-season, so based on what we saw pre-season,
11:06I thought they were the best two centre-halves we had in the building pre-season.
11:10Finally, Sheffield Wednesday.
11:11What do you make of them and all the troubles going on in the club at the moment?
11:14I think, yeah, I obviously follow what's going on at the football club from afar
11:18and it's not a pleasant story, I think, for anybody that is connected to football
11:24and anybody that's a football fan, regardless of rivalries
11:27and regardless of what you want to see for other clubs.
11:29And, yeah, it's a sort of sad state of affairs, I think,
11:32that's fallen upon the football club, particularly for the fans
11:35who have been there for years and years and years
11:38and still continue to go.
11:40I know there are protests, but they still turn out every week
11:43and I'm sure they will at the weekend.
11:44So, yeah, it's never a nice thing to see.
11:46And, yeah, at some point, I'm sure their football club,
11:50because it's such a big football club, will come out the other side of it.
11:52And as a team as well?
11:54As a team, it's an interesting one if you look at all the problems
11:57that the football club have had over the summer.
11:59The starting XI that they put out for the majority of the league games
12:03is still very, very strong.
12:04It's still a championship starting XI,
12:06littered with some really, really strong championship players.
12:09Barry Bannon, obviously, is still there.
12:11Liam Palmer, Jan Valerio, Horvath in goal.
12:15There's plenty of very, very well-recognised championship names
12:18who can keep going across the XI.
12:20And I think that means they're a very real threat.
12:22They're a side that's had good success in the League Cup.
12:26Been unlucky in the league, definitely been unlucky in the league, I think.
12:29And they've shown some real glimpses in certain games,
12:32particularly the Wrexham game coming from two goals down
12:34away from home against a very strong side.
12:36That's not a side that's sort of reflecting what's going on
12:40off the pitch at the minute there.
12:41They're a very, very dangerous side and a very good side
12:43when things get going.
12:45And they've got a smaller squad as well, naturally,
12:47because of what's happened.
12:47Yeah, I think that's the area that sort of that squad depth
12:50is certainly probably the difference.
12:53So we'll talk about the starting XI there.
12:55And I think as you go a bit deeper,
12:57because of what's happened in the summer,
12:58that's probably been an area of difficulty
13:00for the football club to try and strengthen.
13:02Have you got any other injuries still?
13:04No, a couple of knocks, a couple of bruises
13:07and some tired legs from the weekend, but no new injuries.
13:10How's Thomas Waddingham as well?
13:12Yeah, Wads, sorry, Wads is one of the injuries.
13:15He pulled up with his quad in training last week.
13:19So we are awaiting the scan results with Tom.
13:21Oh, OK.
13:21So you've got no time frame yet for that one?
13:23No time frame yet.
13:24That's one that's because it's not a new one.
13:26It did happen last weekend,
13:27so he wasn't in the squad the weekend.
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