Portsmouth boss expects a brilliant occasion at Peterborough United

The League One leaders will be backed by almost 4,000 fans at the Weston Homes Stadium as they look to end a run of three straight defeats in this fixture.

And Mousinho is looking forward to what he believes will be a ‘brilliant’ occasion.

Mousinho said: “It’s going to be brilliant. The Peterborough game last year was my third game in charge and we took a huge amount of fans to that game.

“We can generate a really good atmosphere inside London Road and I think it’s going to be a brilliant day and a really good game of football between two teams vying at the top.

“It makes a huge amount of difference if you have a huge amount of support at an away ground, and at times it feels like a home game. We’ve done that a couple of times this year, when it seems like we take over the ground.

“‘For a head coach to have that kind of backing and the players to see that is amazing and it applies for all the games now for the rest of the season.

“Every game now probably takes on an added importance because of the state of play in the league and where we are in the season, and particularly because of some of the sides we’re playing are in and around us in the league. That’s definitely a case in point on Saturday.

“We don’t want to get carried away and overplay what is just another game, but I also think it can be healthy to have a bit of excitement around what it means to go there and play in these games at this time in the season.

“Playing every game for Portsmouth brings massive pressure and it’s been there all season.

“It’s a good thing - we want the pressure to be massive and we want the players to embrace it. We don’t want to be floating around and not trying to achieve anything.”

Portsmouth lost this fixture 2-1 last season soon after Darren Ferguson returned to manage Posh for a fourth time.