Portsmouth boss John Mousinho delivers honest squad admission as play-off hopes fade

But the Pompey head coach is adamant the squad still needs time to adjust as he strives to get his message across.

Fingers had been pointed at the players following their 3-1 defeat to Plymouth on Saturday.

The loss at Home Park saw Mousinho’s men drop to 11th in the table – 12 points adrift of the top six.

But as doubts continue to be raised over the side he inherited from Danny Cowley, the Blues boss stressed he does have the right players within his ranks to execute his game plan.

All they need to do is concentrate to the details he’ll be providing both on and off the pitch.

‘It’s going to take a lot of work,’ he added.

‘It’s going to take a lot of work on the training pitch and we are going to have to improve our physicality and the way we press for 90 minutes because I’m asking a bit more of the players in terms of the way we want to get up at the opposition.

‘It’s just a lot of work to do and a lot of that will be to address it in the meeting rooms and giving players pointers, but the majority of that will be done on the training pitch.

‘My question to the players this morning was, how far away do you feel from Plymouth? There’s clearly a gap there but you can bridge that gap and if so what do you need to do and what do we need to do to improve them?

‘They are the league leaders, they’ve been up there for the majority of the season and they do some of the basics really well.

‘Ultimately, to get out of this league, that's what you need to do.

‘Everything I've asked of the players, they’ve done brilliantly well.

‘Of course we’ll always look to see what we are going to do further down the line in terms of recruitment to see what we can add to that and enhance how we want to play.’