John Mousinho admits Pompey will probably rue the opportunities they have had to win recent games - if as expected they fail to make the play-offs.

Another draw - this one at Shrewsbury - was Pompey's fourth all-square finish in five games and Mousinho knows that's not good enough to get among the sides in with a serious shout of promotion.

A draw for Derby means Pompey are still six points - rather than eight points - off the play-offs but that looks like too big a gap to make up, expecially with the Blues now finding wins hard to come by.

The Pompey boss told the club website after Marlon Pack's equaliser had at least earned Pompey a point: 'It’s a disappointing one — not just the result, but also the performance, which wasn’t up to scratch. In the end we’ve come away with what we deserved because there was a lot of endeavour, but we didn’t show enough quality in possession when we were in the final third.

'I know that we’ve got players on the pitch who can do that — we’ve seen it over the past 10-12 weeks. Something we have to work on as a coaching unit and a team is that we didn’t come alive until going 1-0 down.

'I know that Shrewsbury dropped off naturally, but we also stepped up a couple of notches and we have do it from the start. You can’t just look to stay in the game and wait for something to happen, although we could have won it in the end.

'We haven’t been properly punished and we’re in still sight of sixth, but I think we’ll rue the opportunities we’ve missed over the past few matches.'

Mousinho commented on a couple of Pompey penalty shouts that could have put a different spin on the game.

He added: 'There were two really strong penalty shouts — the first on Reeco when the defender hauled him down and that’s given anywhere else on the pitch. The other one is on Connor and Chey Dunkley is late on him. The explanation from the fourth official is that there’s momentum and there will always be contact after the ball goes away.

'My reply to him was that’s exactly what a foul is — and it’s what Marlon was booked for in the first half. Because it’s in a box there seems to be a much higher threshold for decisions, but a there shouldn’t be.

'We can’t come away blaming the officials for why we haven’t won, though, because we have to do more to make sure we’re not relying on those moments'

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