John Mousinho's verdict after Portsmouth defeat to Coventry

The News, Portsmouth

Pompey 1 Coventry 2: John Mousinho's verdict

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00:00John, first of all, let's talk about the penalty there was with De Silva in the first half,

00:04a big talking point. What did you make of that?

00:06I thought it was a penalty. We've obviously seen it back. We've had the luxury of looking

00:11at the replay and his arm's way out and it hits his arm. So, yeah, one of those, the

00:18officiating team, the referee didn't actually see it. He was looking in the box for anything

00:22in there. Didn't see it and no one else picked it up. Yeah, one of those things that we didn't get.

00:28The referee said he didn't see it. Are you disappointed with that?

00:31Yeah, I suppose that sometimes football is such an intense game and really dynamic,

00:38taking his eye off it for a couple of seconds. If that happens, there are four officials out there

00:42to hopefully pick it up. So, one of the linesmen could have seen it as well?

00:46Yeah, one of the linesmen or the fourth official, I suppose, but they didn't pick it up. Who knows

00:51if the game would have been different there, but yeah, it's one of those that we clearly

00:57at the time are upset about. Obviously, you had a few words with Frank Lampard

01:01at the time as well. Yeah, I was just trying to talk to the fourth official. That was all

01:04I was trying to talk to the fourth official and I wasn't allowed to and the fourth official

01:07didn't deal with it. What, did Frank interrupt you there?

01:11That's a polite way of putting it, yeah. So, yeah, it was impossible for me to speak

01:19to the fourth official all night. There were three penalties at appeals. I mean, that was clearly

01:24the strongest, wasn't it? I think that was one. I think the other one, with the challenge of

01:28Minhoek and Bobby Thomas, we can see why it wasn't given. The other one down the far end,

01:32I think, it definitely hits the player's hand, but he's going to ground and I don't know.

01:37Yeah, it came off his foot as well, didn't it? Yeah, I don't think that's a penalty. I thought

01:39the first one was. Yeah, and obviously, at the time, it was goalless as well, wasn't it?

01:43Yeah, and maybe it does make a difference, but, you know, Coventry was a very good side

01:48and I thought they deserved one again. Yeah, overall, you said Coventry was a very good

01:51side, didn't they? Yeah, they did and then they caught us in a different way, probably

01:56slightly more direct and, you know, having that pacing power up top, we struggled to deal

02:01with that and, yeah, ultimately, they've come away with a win and I do think we could have

02:06scored more than a goal, but they probably could have scored more than two.

02:08I think at that second, when you're having your best spell and then it came against a

02:13runner played in there. Yeah, we came out really brightly in the second half and that was good.

02:15It was a good reaction to going a goal down, a good reaction to a ball first half and, ultimately,

02:19we have to deal with that clearance a lot better and there's no danger at that time that we

02:23lose the challenge on the halfway line and you have the balls in the back of the net.

02:27And obviously, not dealing with it on the touchline, there's a big space behind, I suppose,

02:30isn't it? Yeah, and Coventry was still being brave in terms of leaving three up and we

02:34haven't quite organised well enough. It's one of those where if we

02:38deal with the ball on the touchline and we come away with it, Coventry have committed

02:41too many players forward and who knows what goes on at the other end. So, yeah, we need

02:45to cover around a little bit better, but just have to win the challenge.

02:49Your performance today, you're clearly against a very good side, but what disappointed you

02:55about aspects of your performance today, would you say?

02:58When you're up against a side, I think as good as Coventry, then it's the way that you

03:03lose the game if you lose it. And if I look at the two big incidents in the game, or the

03:07two goals against, the first one comes from a throw in front of the technical area, thrown

03:14down the line, we lose the first contact. I think Thomas Asante runs off one of our players,

03:19picks on the second ball, they were in a corner, and then we don't deal with the corner, just

03:23three in contact. So, at home, scrapping away in this league, we need to make sure that we're

03:30much better than that. Same with the second goal, losing the challenge on the halfway.

03:34And there's times where Coventry catches us on the counter doing certain things, and particularly

03:39that chance at the end, I think where Van Uruk makes that long overlap, and you think,

03:45OK, that's really good football. Other than that, we've just lost that on a couple of

03:49the basics.

03:50Adrian Segetich, what's the situation with him?

03:52We don't know yet. I don't think he looks great. I think he's done something to his

03:54ankle, so we'll see how that settles down in the next couple of days.

03:57From where we've sat in there, he looked extremely upset over it as well.

04:02Yeah, he is. He obviously wants to come in and have an impact and a good chance for him,

04:05so we just don't know how bad it is.

04:08What's the process now, then?

04:10I will say it settles down tomorrow, and then he'll probably get a scan on Thursday or Friday.

04:13Do you fear the worst with that one?

04:15I think whenever those sorts of things happen, you're worried about the potential,

04:19but there's absolutely nothing we can do about it now. We can think about it as much as we like.

04:22We'll wait until the medical team comes back with a diagnosis.

04:25And as a player, a player knows, isn't it? You can see that he knew it was a bad one.

04:29Yeah, I think he knew straight away. I think he put his hand up, signalled that his knee has come off,

04:33and it was a really gutting run.

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