Portsmouth should be proud as one of the last clubs standing in record
Portsmouth should be proud to have stuck by John Mousinho this season during some turbulent times.
The head coach has been the first to admit when matters have been concerning on the pitch for Pompey back in the Championship, and has taken his maiden criticism on the chin so far.
This season was always going to be a real baptism of fire – not helped by an extensive list of injuries during the first half of the campaign which seeps into the present – but the novice boss has navigated things pretty well, by and large.
Mousinho the second-longest-serving Championship manager
Having joined Portsmouth in January 2023, Mousinho is now the second-longest-serving manager in the Championship, behind Middlesbrough’s Michael Carrick by three months.
While that says plenty for the increasingly ruthless nature of football management and the dispensable way they are valued by directors, it should also bring credit on Pompey for the belief instilled in Mousinho when things have been far from easy.
The first sack calls began to sprout when the Blues found themselves in the relegation zone over the past few months, struggling for any momentum on the road and regularly looking out of their depth. The owners were slammed more than Mousinho himself, however, having been accused of penny-pinching on the transfer budget.
Following Paul Warne’s sacking by Derby County – who earned their first point in eight games on Saturday (8 February) while Pompey were desperately unlucky at Sheffield United – Mousinho is now the only manager in the Championship’s bottom seven to have remained in post since before the summer.
Only two others in the bottom half – Luke Williams of Swansea and Marti Cifuentes at QPR – have clung onto their respective jobs. Cifuentes is a similar case in point given QPR’s horrendous first few months of the season, which included Pompey’s only away win in 2024-25 to date back in October at Loftus Road.
Clubs are often too quick to pull the trigger while having not let a manager install their own ideas with their own profile of players filling the squad – Pompey deserve a pat on the back for not following the same route.
Portsmouth will stay up under Mousinho
I have seen enough from Portsmouth this season to know they are better than relegation fodder. Some of the results and performances at Fratton Park have shouted that from the rooftops, and that emanates from Mousinho’s instruction.
He is far from immune to criticism – sometimes this term, he has been rightly blasted. The recent thrashing by West Brom when he rotated half his strongest team (25 January) was a prime example on his shoulders.
But the Championship is a consistent learning curve for Pompey, who are battling with the objective to simply finish above three rivals this season.
Do that, go again and establish yourselves – the platform is there. Portsmouth are a Championship club in every sense right now, relegation is unthinkable and would set the club’s progress back years. Mousinho has the ability to achieve it and more, he just needs the tools.