John Mousinho applauded Josh Murphy’s best performance in a Pompey shirt – and is convinced it will catapult him into a more devastating Championship performer.
The classy winger inspired the Blues to a third successive victory following a mercurial display against QPR.
Murphy broke the deadlock on 47 minutes when he accepted Andre Dozzell’s pass, cut in from the left and curled a wonderful right-footed shot into the far corner of the net.
He then turned creator for Matt Ritchie to net at the far post just five minutes later in Pompey’s 2-1 success, which rightly earned him the man-of-the-match accolade.
For Mousinho, it was the ex-Oxford United man’s finest display since his free transfer arrival in the summer, totalling six goals and nine assists to date.
And he is adamant the manner of Murphy’s goal can raise his game to even greater heights – and put fear into the Championship.
The Blues’ head coach told The News: ‘Saturday was probably Murph’s best performance amongst some very, very good performances.
‘The most pleasing part of this performance was the fact he scored in a different way. I don’t think he had scored that sort of goal this season, cutting in on his right foot.
‘He’s had a few opportunities, a few real near misses, I remember quite a few at the Milton End as well.
‘Cutting inside to score is not one the coaching staff can take a huge amount of credit for. Murph has done it himself – we’ve just spoken to him about it
‘Full-backs and defenders now, they’re looking at the way Murph likes to get in, they’re thinking “Okay, you take the ball down the line really, really well, we’re going to have to try to protect against that to a certain extent”.
‘So they are sometimes going to show you the inside – but until you score a goal like that (against QPR) – you can’t prove you can go both ways. It’s something we’ve been saying he can do a lot more.
‘He hit the bar at Sheffield United doing it, so he’s just not quite had that goal percentage. If I’m a full-back and Murph is facing me up and he can go both ways, it’s a very, very difficult prospect.
‘On Saturday, he scores that goal and then gets the assist, while also has the work-rate off the left and the work-rate on the right. You could see he was dead on his feet at the end, but he’s a very, very fit lad, extremely talented and we’re very pleased to have him.’
Since February 2024, Murphy has scored 14 goals and played 49 times to kickstart once more a career which had been immensely promising.
The former £11m Cardiff man has suffered injury problems along the way and was briefly with Mousinho at the Kassam Stadium, before a Pompey head coach role beckoned for the latter.
Now he’s fit and flourishing at Fratton Park.
Mousinho added: ‘There was a break after the ball had broken down, so we tried to play Michael Frey offside and Hayden Matthews did well to delay him.
‘Murph ran back 70-80 yards. We speak about recovery runs a fair bit and sometimes players recover and you don’t notice it because it’s on the opposite side of the pitch and it doesn’t come to anything. Yet Murph’s had that consistency this season.
‘I played with Murph, I knew how good he was, but when I played with him he hardly played, he didn’t play a huge amount for Oxford.
‘He had come off the back of a season on loan at Preston with a couple of injuries, moved back down south, really settled himself down and got into fantastic physical condition.
‘He’s played a huge amount of games and we have to keep him going. We’ve got to keep him at it, because we can see what he does.’
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