PORTSMOUTH head coach John Mousinho looks ahead to his side’s rescheduled fixture at home to Ipswich Town in the EFL Championship.
Tonight’s encounter between 21st and 2nd, is the third attempt to play this game, with the original date on January 4th being postponed due to a frozen pitch.
That occasion was then moved to February 10th; however, that was also called off, this time due to heavy rain on Portsea Island.
Both sides come into this tie with their respective victories at the weekend, as Portsmouth earned a last-gasp 1-0 victory away at Ipswich’s promotion rivals – Middlesbrough, thanks to a goal from Tractor Boys loanee Conor Chaplin.
While Kieran McKenna’s side earned a 2-0 victory in the East Anglian Derby away at Norwich City, with a penalty from Jaden Philogene and a strike from ex-Pompey loanee George Hirst, making sure Town did the double on their bitter rivals.
On the task at hand, Mousinho stated: “We have prepared for them a couple of times to play them at home now. This is the fourth time we have prepared for Ipswich this season.
“I watch a lot of Ipswich anyway, so I am pretty familiar with the way that they play and have done over the past few seasons because they have been excellent in League One, excellent in the Championship, and they are a very, very good side.
“I think they have got better having got promoted to the Premier League and coming back down and built the squad off the back of that, and they have built an extremely strong side, with two and sometimes three players in each position.
“They have a very distinct way of playing, it is very difficult to play against, clearly one of the form sides in the league, and they have got better and better as the season went on, so it is going to be a really tough test.”
Pompey attacker Conor Chaplin will not be eligible to play for the Blues this evening, due to an agreement made when the Ipswich loanee moved back to the south coast on loan in the summer.
On the absence of Chaplin against his parent club, Mousinho added: “We have prepared for this game at home twice already, so we were already aware of the circumstance of that coming into it.
“He had a very good afternoon on Saturday (against Boro), he put in a huge amount of work, kept winning second balls, kept us ticking over, and deserved the goal in the end.
“Ultimately, it will be a opputunity for someone else to come in and make an impact.”
