Mousinho: A Missed Opportunity

There was a mixture of elation and relief that filled Fratton Park in the second minute of stoppage-time.

Substitute Kusini Yengi nodded home a Joe Rafferty cross on his debut to ensure Pompey secured a 1-1 draw with Bristol Rovers on the opening day.

It was certainly deserved, with the home side applying plenty of pressure from the moment they fell behind midway through the first half.

And although John Mousinho was pleased with the late leveller, he is demanding to see more from his side.

The Blues boss said: “We needed to take better advantage of some of the areas we got ourselves into and the goal came from probably the best cross we had all afternoon.

“I thought that Bristol Rovers were a decent side and a point’s about right, but we need to reflect and be better in certain areas.

“When you give them a sniff then you see what they’re capable of and they dug in well in the second half to defend their box.

“There are mixed emotions in the dressing room. It was important that we didn’t lose, but we’ll rue some of the chances we missed.

“I don’t think we were effective enough in the first half and were a bit sloppy in the way we went about our business.

“We dwelt on the ball a bit too much, although our press was pretty good. Colby was brilliant at that and as a physical threat, you don’t get much better.

“But we gave the ball away far too much, so although there are no huge concerns, there are things for us to work on.”

Christian Saydee produced an impressive performance after replacing Tom Lowery in an attacking switch at the interval.

Mousinho said: “Tom picked up a little injury at half-time – just a bit of swelling on the knee – while we also hadn’t had enough bodies in the box when we got the ball in there.

“We wanted to get someone closer to Colby because we were hitting him – particularly Will Norris – from those long diagonals.

“So the shape change helped and I thought that Christian was excellent – he was probably my man-of-the-match. He made a difference and lifted everyone.”