Portsmouth boss John Mousinho's thoughts on his side's 4-1 win against Coventry.
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00:00John, what a performance today and what a performance from Callum Lamb.
00:05Yes, if you look at the performance as a whole, I'm really pleased with the second half especially.
00:10I thought we were superb in the second half. The first half was, I suppose it was good in patches, but it was such an open game.
00:16I don't think either head coach would have been particularly pleased at how many chances were being conceded at either end,
00:20how many breaks there were in terms of fast breaks and counter-attacks.
00:25Once we settled down and once we really pinned Coventry in their half, I thought we were excellent.
00:29Really good value for the win.
00:31And then, yes, there's run out of superlatives to talk about Callum Lamb's performance today.
00:36Not just the goals that he scored, but his entire performance, the way that he held the ball up,
00:39the way that he pressed, the way that he caused problems.
00:42It was really pleasing for Callum and he deservedly has gone home with a hat-trick ball plus one.
00:47Have you ever seen a game where a player's got four goals?
00:53I'm trying to think. Yes, once. Grant Holt once scored five for Shrewsbury against Wickham in the EFL Trophy.
01:01But apart from that, I don't think I've ever scored a hat-trick since I've been coaching, unless I've got that wrong.
01:10Plenty of braces, but no hat-tricks and to get four was really special.
01:14Callum Lamb has been excellent this year, really has.
01:18Yes, he's been excellent since the moment he set foot in Portsmouth.
01:23And he was one of our top targets in January.
01:28And we decided to go and get him to get us over the line.
01:31And he did that with the goals that he scored coming into the side.
01:34Unfortunately, he got injured, I think, in that Blackpool game last season.
01:37But he came back and he's come back right at the top of his game.
01:41I think during the back end of pre-season and yes, he's just hit the ground running.
01:45He's not looked back and Callum fully deserves it.
01:48He keeps himself in incredible shape.
01:51You can see that by the physicality, the running, the pressing, the fact he can hold the ball up as well.
01:55And his finishing has always been very, very good.
01:57And it's about, for Callum, making sure he keeps on top of that.
02:00What was it about his game that got him those four goals today, would you say?
02:03Puts himself in the right positions, first of all.
02:05I'm just trying to think of all of the goals.
02:09The first goal, he's probably slightly fortunate because maybe the goalkeeper did better.
02:15You get that when you take that amount of shots and you create that amount of chances for yourself.
02:19You get that. The second goal is just an incredible finish.
02:22He puts himself in between the defender and the man.
02:25I thought he could have gone down in the box, but he doesn't.
02:27Brilliant finish.
02:28I think the third goal is one that we haven't seen a huge amount from Callum.
02:32I don't think we've actually seen him score from a corner for us.
02:35Again, it's nice that having the physicality in the box.
02:39I think he was left unmarked, which sometimes is going to happen.
02:42For him to finish that as well was great.
02:45The fourth, I think, was pure persistence.
02:47It was brilliant down the left-hand side from Conor Ogilvie.
02:50Colby got across the front.
02:52The goalkeeper made a couple of saves, but Callum's there.
02:54He puts himself in the right positions and when he gets a chance, he finishes it.
02:57And you kept it on for a while as well after that.
03:00Yes, I mean, at 4-1, from my perspective, the game's never finished.
03:07It's very, very rare that you feel secure, whether you're up by three or up by four.
03:13What we wanted to do was to make sure we stayed on the pitch because we wanted to win the game.
03:17We're not here for anything other than to win the game.
03:21We brought Callum off to protect him because he's so important for us.
03:25So we can go again next week.
03:27Superb performance.
03:28After the Derby game, you said,
03:30wait a minute, Pompey played really well in the previous six games.
03:33Let's not forget that.
03:34And again, apart from the Derby, another great performance today.
03:38Yes, it's a difficult one.
03:40We don't want to brush Derby under the carpet,
03:42but at the same time we don't want to define what we're going to do over the Christmas period and into January.
03:48So we have to make sure we take a lot of positivity from the way we've been playing, particularly at home.
03:52We've been great at home.
03:54We've probably got to address a couple of areas that we need to get better at away from home.
03:58That's absolutely fine.
03:59We've got two away games now coming up.
04:01We'll have to do that.
04:02Yes, we definitely have to do that.
04:03But I felt a lot different than when I was speaking to you.
04:07I think I said at the time after, say, the Cardiff and Stoke games,
04:10where they came off the back of a couple of decent performances,
04:15because I think it was Sheffield United and QPR before that.
04:17But overall, we haven't quite got into our rhythm yet.
04:20But I do feel that we're in a much better place now.
04:22Obviously, Regan Paul wasn't part of the squad today.
04:24What's the situation there?
04:26Yes, Regan wasn't able to train this week.
04:28So like I said to you on Wednesday, we decided to scan him.
04:32Yesterday, it's going to be two to three weeks for Regan from the date of the injury.
04:36So I think that's ten days.
04:38It's going to be two weeks on Tuesday.
04:40So we are being cautious with it because it's on the side where we had the hamstring graft for the ACL.
04:46But nothing major and hopefully back within ten days to two weeks.
04:53So you're looking at January then?
04:55Yes, early Jan for Regan.
04:58But yes, nothing too bad.
05:00Is it a good job you took cautionary action with him?
05:03Yes, I think so.
05:04Absolutely.
05:05Judging by the fact that he didn't end up managing to train this week,
05:10we wanted to make sure that we got everything right with Regan.
05:14You take into account the 11 months that he had out with his injury history.
05:18And yes, we've got to get him right.
05:20And there's a few lads missing from the squad.
05:22What's the situation with those?
05:24Yes, we've just a few minor niggles and some illness at the moment.
05:28I know everyone's dealing with that.
05:30Elias was ill yesterday, not quite right again.
05:32And one of those things where we don't want to really take the risk and have everybody round the group.
05:37We had Harvey still struggling slightly with a knee injury.
05:41And Abdu, he had a toe problem in training yesterday that should rule him out for today.
05:47Is there anyone else in the squad?
05:49Somebody else as well, come on.
05:51From last week?
05:52Yes.
05:54No one's been left out.
06:00It's just, if not in the squad, it's fitness issues.