At the end of 101 minutes, the mountain of buildup to a first league meeting between old foes for more than 13 years been and gone, the discourse quickly shifted from a feisty and somewhat forgettable stalemate to the world of handshake etiquette.<\/p>\n
It was not quite a Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte kind of bust-up<\/a>, given they had to be pulled apart after clashing at Stamford Bridge three years ago, but it is safe to say the Southampton manager, Will Still, did not appreciate his Portsmouth counterpart John Mousinho\u2019s firm grip in the seconds after the final whistle.<\/p>\n This was an eagerly anticipated first match up<\/a> between these clubs since they were paired in the Carabao Cup third round six years ago<\/a>, when two divisions separated the sides.<\/p>\n It was always going to be a supercharged occasion, with the 2,700 travelling supporters as well as the Pompey team coach bussed in under a police escort. There was an early decoy run, too, with the team coach entering at stage left, in the corner populated by the away fans, much to the disappointment of the swell of Saints supporters waiting to welcome their rivals outside the main entrance.<\/p>\n There was some early needle between Still and Mousinho, too, the former unhappy at some perceived early time-wasting, glaring at his opposite number after haring on to the pitch to hurry the ball to the Portsmouth<\/a> full-back Zak Swanson.<\/p>\n Portsmouth succeeded in swiftly dousing the natural excitement that accompanied the fixture and came closest to scoring, with the midfielder Andre Dozzell curling a crisp first-time shot against the crossbar nine minutes into the contest.<\/p>\n Southampton were subdued, particularly in the first half, and midway through the Portsmouth goalkeeper, Nicolas Schmid, was forced off and went to hospital with a wrist injury after colliding with his defender Connor Ogilvie, who had to be replaced at the interval with a neck issue. Mousinho was unhappy with the Southampton<\/a> winger Tom Fellows, one of a flurry of recent arrivals, for nudging Ogilvie towards his goalkeeper.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought it was really poor,\u201d the Portsmouth manager said. \u201cIt is a small push but a small push with massive consequences \u2026 there\u2019s no other explanation for that other than he\u2019s trying to injure our players. And he did so successfully, so well done on that. If anyone can give me another explanation, I\u2019ll happily take it.\u201d<\/p>\n There were only two shots on target, one apiece. The Portsmouth substitute Terry Devlin registered a bumbling strike from distance, easy for the former Pompey loanee Gavin Bazunu to gather in the Southampton goal, and Cameron Archer flicked an effort at the substitute goalkeeper Ben Killip.<\/p>\n Will Still was a picture of frustration during the match. Photograph: Robin Jones\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Josh Murphy\u2019s wicked delivery from the left flank caused Southampton problems and this was undoubtedly a superior result for Pompey, who remain two points above Saints in the second tier. \u201cWho needs Mourinho? We\u2019ve got Mousinho,\u201d the away fans rejoiced.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Football Daily<\/p>\n Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The Southampton manager suggested his squad, despite much change, is still bruised from relegation. \u201cIt was a bit of a flat balloon in the end,\u201d Still said of the game.<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t just happen like that,\u201d he said, clicking his fingers. \u201cIt is frustrating because people think: \u2018You\u2019ve got the team you want, you\u2019ve got to do it [have success].\u2019 Yeah, I know, but it takes time. We wasted everyone\u2019s time in the first half and it was just a bit of a dull derby that didn\u2019t reflect who we want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n After the referee, Matthew Donohue, blew for full time, that strong handshake prompted Still to screw his face at Mousinho. \u201cI didn\u2019t quite get that \u2026 I didn\u2019t understand why he grabbed hold of my hand,\u201d Still said.<\/p>\n \u201cMe and him are good mates, don\u2019t worry about it,\u201d Mousinho said, his reply laced with sarcasm. \u201cI don\u2019t want anyone to come off [the pitch] and be the best of friends after the game. I certainly don\u2019t think the managers of these clubs should be best of mates.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the end of 101 minutes, the mountain of buildup to a first league meeting between old foes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-143729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}