Portsmouth boss’ powerful response to questions over his Fratton tenure to date as season concludes

And the Blues boss believes his three-and-a-half months at the Fratton helm provides a sturdy basis to build towards success next term.

The final game of the season against Wycombe this Sunday will see Mousinho take charge of his team for the 23rd time. The 37-year-old carries a record of 10 wins, eight draws and four defeats into the clash, as the curtain comes down on the League One campaign.

Pompey know they are facing a SEVENTH season at third-tier level, with play-off hopes revived before a failure to turn four draws on the spin into wins seeing those ambitions dashed. Mousinho acknowledged that disappointment but feels he can be satisfied with the job he’s done, after arriving with the Blues winless in 10 league outings.

He said: ‘If you went back to January 22 and said fast forward to May 5 and that’s your tally, I think we would’ve taken it. In fact, I know we would’ve done considering the circumstances and everything we knew. Also, the huge amount of uncertainty around myself more than anything else and what people were going to expect from me.

‘Was it too much of a risk bringing in someone like me at that stage of the season?

‘As I’ve said, the first question I got at the fans’ conference was “how are you going to get us out of this relegation battle?”. At that point Oxford were a point ahead of us, so it (relegation) was a genuine concern at that point and you have to be wary of that.

‘Then, when you reflect on that period it’s pleasing. I guess the disappointment was because we came so close. It wasn’t just because we came close and didn’t get there, it was the four draws coming out like that. If you’d spread them out it would feel different, but say if we beat Oxford the other week it feels a bit different - and I get that. That feeling was of disappointment but reflecting on the period as a whole is pleasing.’

With Pompey collecting 38 points from the 66 available so far under Mousinho in 22 outings, that represents a decent return of 1.72 points per game. That’s not too far from the two-point threshold usually associated with success in League One, with Mousinho seeing the gains to be made within reach.

He added: ‘We need to have a look at what that form looks like next season. In order to get to where we want to be we will probably need to add a couple of points to that tally if you doubled it or took points per game.

‘It’s a really good base to start with, but there’s a huge amount of improvement to be had. That’s a pleasing things as well.

‘We know we’ve performed okay and got to a certain place playing pretty well in a lot of games but pretty average in some and pretty abysmally in others, but not too many. We just know we can improve on that and if we do improve on that next season we will be right in the mix.’