Pompey head coach John Mousinho talks to The News ahead of Gillingham's visit to Fratton Park in the EFL Trophy
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00:00 So John, it's the EFL trophy against Gillingham on Tuesday night. How do you approach this
00:10 match?
00:11 Yeah, same as any other. First of all we want to win the game and we're going to put a side
00:16 out that's extremely competitive. Obviously I think some of these cup games give us a
00:20 chance to change the approach in terms of the team selection but it's only that, it's
00:26 only the fact that we're going to tweak a few things in terms of personnel, the way
00:30 we approach the game and the way we want to play and our desire to win isn't going to
00:33 change and one of the things that's been a hallmark of the cup games so far this season
00:37 is the fact that we're going to go out and try and win them and we're going to put a
00:39 very very strong side in, or at least a side we think is very very strong. So we're going
00:43 to go and compete and we want to advance into the next round of this competition and tomorrow
00:47 night's the first step towards doing that.
00:50 Early October at the moment, you've played a lot of games as a team, a lot of players
00:54 have played a lot of games, will you rotate it completely because of the size of your
00:57 squad as well?
00:58 I don't think we'll have the luxury of rotating it completely this week, mainly because we're
01:02 missing four players on international duty so if you look at the likes of Terry probably
01:06 would have come into the side, Regan Paul, Alex Robertson, Paddy Lane, Paddy's played
01:11 in this competition in the last round as well so we're down four players which means that
01:16 we have slightly fewer players to pick from this week. We've also picked up a couple more
01:20 injuries since then as well so what we're going to do is we're going to rotate in some
01:23 areas but there are going to be a lot of players that feature on Saturday that start the game
01:27 on Tuesday and so there's a couple of reasons we do that. First of all that's the way we
01:32 have to go about the game and second of all it's good that we don't have the game at the
01:36 weekend so we don't have to worry about fitness, we don't have to worry about energy, legs,
01:39 all of those sort of things. It's a nice one for the players to go into knowing that they've
01:43 got a bit of a break after it and they can put everything into it.
01:45 Obviously Cassini-Young is back, is this too early to start him do you feel?
01:51 I think we'll take a decision on that later on this afternoon but everything that we're
01:56 looking at medically tells us we're absolutely fine to start him and he's back and he's available,
02:01 he's had a good week's worth of training behind him so he's certainly an option that we can
02:05 look at for starting tomorrow.
02:07 And Connor Ogilvie?
02:08 Yep, Connor Ogilvie, he's probably a couple of days behind Cassini, he trained today for
02:13 the first time fully so we'll look to get another training session into him tomorrow
02:18 and a couple more this week before we actually look at pushing him for availability. So we've
02:23 got a free week next week in terms of no games and a full training block so we'll get Connor
02:26 back on the grass then and then he'll be back on tension for the Carlisle game.
02:30 And what do you make of Gillingham?
02:32 Yeah, it's a very interesting one at the moment with the change in manager last week and so
02:38 what we have to go off in terms of Gillingham are the performance at the weekend under the
02:42 interim manager where they played well, they beat MK Dons who were a side that were competing
02:45 at that level for promotion and Gillingham have had a really good start to the season
02:50 so slightly different from the usual when you're possibly playing somebody with an interim
02:56 manager. The side have done very well, they're well organised, they've recruited well over
03:01 the summer and we expect a really tough test from them. We don't know what side they're
03:04 going to play, we don't know how they're going to approach the cup, the only thing I would
03:07 say is that in the first round of this competition they went with a strong side so again we expect
03:13 much like us even if they do make changes they'll be very strong.
03:16 Their director of football is Kenny Jackett, a former Pompidou manager, have you come across
03:19 him much?
03:20 Yeah, plenty of times when I played against the Portsmouth teams of the past the one that
03:25 really sticks out is when Kenny was in charge of Portsmouth in the play-off semi-final games
03:30 I think in 2020. I've also played against this Wolves side that I think absolutely blew
03:35 League 1 away and he's had a huge amount of success in his career so yeah, a huge amount
03:40 of respect for Kenny in everything he's done and he had an incredible time here as well
03:46 so yeah, really one of those things that I think is a nice little coincidence for everyone
03:50 at the club and it's no surprise that Gillingham are doing as well as they're doing with him
03:55 at the helm.
03:56 Obviously with it being the EFL trophy, normally kids are put into the squad at all, will that
04:01 be the case for this one?
04:03 I think what we're going to do is again approach it the same way as we approached the last
04:07 couple of cup games, if any of the academy players do make any appearances or appear
04:11 on the bench it's because they deserve to do so so we speak to the academy staff and
04:15 we ask them who have been the best performers. I had the fortune of being able to actually
04:20 watch half of the academy game at the weekend against Northampton so it was nice to actually
04:24 when the fixtures match up and we have a home game and they've got a home game it's nice
04:29 for me to be able to go over and watch how they're doing so yeah, it's all going to be
04:32 based on merit so anybody you see in the squad tomorrow they're in the squad or they're in
04:35 the starting line-up because they deserve to be.
04:37 Well Kobe Mott has won and has played in cup games this season as well, could he be involved?
04:41 Yeah definitely, Kobe's one who has stood out in terms of his academy performances and
04:46 then I think he stood out against Forest Green and played in the two cup games subsequently
04:50 against Peterborough and Fulham and yeah one of those names that we're certainly looking
04:54 to try and push towards the first team but again the only time he will make an appearance
04:57 is if he fully deserves it.
04:59 Thank you.
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