Pompey boss John Mousinho give his Shrewsbury Town preview and discusses all the big talking point from Fratton Park.
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00:00 So John after the result on Monday how do you follow that up at Shrewsbury?
00:04 I think we've got to make sure that we take all the positives that we can from
00:08 Monday night and all the things we need to improve upon. As good a performance
00:11 and result as it was there's always stuff that we can improve upon I think
00:14 that goes for any performance up and down the country at any time so we came
00:19 in on Tuesday we made sure that we did our post match as normal got everything
00:22 out of the system and we've moved straight on to preparing for the game at
00:25 the weekend and that's the most important thing for us now so we need to
00:28 make sure we put in another good performance and against a decent side
00:31 and I think that's the only way we can try and approach the game.
00:34 You set the bar high on Monday as well isn't it? It's just maintain that presumably.
00:38 Yeah we have to maintain that we have to it's gonna be a very very different game
00:41 as well and we need to make sure we're prepared for that always is away from
00:46 home you get the different nuances of how we prepare and things that we do so
00:50 yeah we we have obviously set a really high bar in terms of the way that
00:55 we pressed in particular and what we did off the ball or out of possession work
00:59 those are the things I think is a bare minimum we can always guarantee and we
01:02 can always make sure we approach games making sure we give her everything and
01:04 the quality off the back of it I know the group's got so we have to make sure
01:08 that we do all the difficult things in football first and then move on to
01:11 playing some nice stuff off the back of it. Obviously you're top of the league
01:14 confidence is high anyway does it even get in even higher after beating second
01:19 place like that? I think it should be I do want the lads to be confident I want
01:22 them to approach games with the knowledge that if they if they you know
01:26 get their mindset right and they put everything that we've put into
01:28 practice into games then I think they can be a real threat and we've seen that
01:32 time and time again and that's that's what I ask of the group I never think
01:35 I'm asking too much of the group I don't think I'm asking them to do anything
01:38 that they're not capable of doing and yeah in a way if you put on that sort of
01:41 performance on Monday night then that's the that's the level we need to stay at
01:45 and it's just it's never that simple right it's always difficult there is a
01:50 completely different game of the weekend but there are some certain basics we can
01:53 take from it that we need to produce every week. In terms of injuries to start
01:56 off with Abu Kamara how's he? Abu's fine it was just a knock to the ankle so
02:00 there's no ligament damage absolutely fine and he trained today he'll be fit
02:04 available for selection at the weekend. That's a relief at the time you didn't
02:07 think it was that bad anyway did you? It didn't look that bad if you compared the
02:10 two if you compared Colby's one against Burton Albion where he properly went
02:13 over on his ankle and when he reappeared in the second half he had a boot and
02:16 crutches on that so he left the stadium Abu left the stadium with his
02:19 flip-flops and an ice bag around the ankle because he couldn't put his
02:23 shoe on but that was just because he had the ice bag wrapped around it it was one
02:26 he could put his weight through so we were pretty confident he'd be okay. And
02:29 there's no problem with training with him today either? He was absolutely fine
02:32 yeah if he needed to take an extra day we would have given it to him so he trained
02:36 today and he's fine. And Colby? Colby trained today he'd been back with the
02:40 medical team for the past couple of days and they were really happy with him in
02:44 terms of taking him out on the grass on Tuesday and Wednesday so trained fully
02:48 with us today he's come through it without a problem so fit and available
02:51 for selection for the weekend and not a couple of days ahead of schedule we
02:56 thought three four weeks was the one I think it's gonna be three weeks on
02:59 Tuesday so yeah a few days ahead but no surprise with Colby. Was today's first
03:02 training session back? Today was his first full session yeah. So that's quite
03:06 a conundrum for you after Cassini-Yenge's performance on Monday night? I think a
03:10 really good one to have you've got Cassini with the performance he put in
03:14 against Bolton on top of what he did against Northampton in the second half
03:17 against Burton where I thought he was excellent in both of those games as well
03:20 and scored the goal got his rewards and then Colby coming off the back of a goal
03:26 in the first half against Burton in good form 11 goals in 18 league games 20 goals
03:31 last season I think one of the league's best centre-forwards so yeah a really
03:35 nice selection headache for us to have. It's not often that Colby's started as a sub
03:39 as well for Pompey since he's been here. No he hasn't for me so I think he
03:44 started every single game that he's been available in the league for me so yeah
03:47 one of those that we'll see how that pans out. Is it one or the other can
03:52 they play together? I think they can play together they have played together in
03:55 the league when not started but they've played together in the league and that's
03:58 a definite option for us I think you know Cassini's flexibility
04:01 across the front three gives us that option potentially you know Colby can
04:07 probably play in a couple of different positions whether he plays as a nine or
04:09 a ten as well so yeah there are there are options there for us to explore and
04:12 that's something we have been thinking about this week. Is that a tough choice?
04:15 Yeah it's not the only tough choice that we've got we've got a lot
04:19 of players in positions that are doing really well that haven't featured for
04:22 the last few weeks there's players that have found themselves on the top
04:25 signs out of the squad that don't deserve to be at all and it's going to be a
04:28 really really tough one I think to decide what we do with that one at the
04:32 weekend and that goes across the entire picture we had it on Monday night when
04:36 we left Christian out after two excellent performances that's just
04:39 the sort of thing we're dealing with at the moment. In terms of other injuries
04:43 what's the situation there? Tom Larry and Anssi Scully are back in full training
04:46 which is great they are available for selection at the weekend I think all the
04:50 other injuries nothing's imminent in terms of return everything else is
04:53 progressing nicely if not slowly but they're certainly I think in terms of
04:58 anything this side of the new year we won't see any other players returning.
05:01 How's Connor Ogilvie? Yeah he's good Connor is walking around a
05:07 lot more freely now he's doing a lot of work in the gym over any of the initial
05:11 issues so he's really cracked on to the second part of his rehab so I suspect
05:15 he's still a few weeks away but he is coming along nicely. What sort of time
05:20 frame, January? Yeah probably around
05:23 probably looking about four weeks with Connor we just have to be careful
05:26 because he didn't have a great reaction earlier on in the injury but we're
05:30 making sure that we stay on top of that and make sure that he is
05:33 yeah he's okay and when he is back he's fully fit. In terms of Ronan Curtis is
05:38 he still around the place? No Ronan's not around anymore I think Ronan hasn't
05:41 been here for a couple of weeks. Is his treatment finished here now then? Yeah so
05:46 our commitment to Ronan was that we were getting back and ready to train
05:51 and obviously after Ronan turned the contract down in the
05:55 summer I think the intention was to make sure that we provided him with
05:59 everything that we possibly could to make sure he was back and he was
06:03 fit and obviously I think he's gone to try and find something somewhere
06:06 else and we wish him the best of luck in doing that. Yeah presumably he's
06:10 saying that you could buy us to him as well? Yeah and it's one of those
06:14 it's great to have around the place, credit to him I think if you're
06:18 coming in and you're not necessarily a signed up squad member it can be
06:21 difficult but Ronan conducted himself really well and we like to think that we
06:24 did the same for him in terms of making sure that we gave him access to
06:28 that top-class rehab which we always said he would and Ronan's
06:32 been here for a number of years I think and he'll be sorely missed by
06:35 everybody and he's a really popular figure amongst all the
06:38 frat and faithful so yeah it's not a particularly easy one but yeah one of
06:43 those things it's obviously we saw Ronan's reasons for turning the
06:47 contract down in the summer that's absolutely fine and if he wants to
06:49 explore options elsewhere then there's nothing we could do about that.
06:52 And he's left here fit now then? Yeah that was again we had that
06:56 duty of care to make sure that he was up to scratch in terms of fitness
07:00 and happy with that and if he wasn't we would have offered him
07:04 anything extra that he wanted and yeah it was I think it's been a
07:08 long old come back for Ronan I think he did his ACL back in February and it
07:13 wasn't straightforward so yeah it's a long long time that he's come back
07:17 recovered and we expect or we'd like to see him wherever he ends up fit,
07:22 firing and playing back to the level he's capable of playing off.
07:25 Cheers, thank you.