John Mousinho is rarely one to get angry at his players, but there was a certain level of it detectable after Saturday's 2-0 loss at home to Sheffield Wednesday.

And you sense he will have them working extra hard this week to make sure he does not see any sort of repeat of the levels on show against the Owls when they face the stiff test of Ipswich at Portman Road on Saturday.

Unlike last season, the Blues have so far been better on the road than at home - unbeaten in trips to Oxford, West Brom and Southampton which have yielded five points, against a record of only one win from the first three Fratton outings.

Mousinho will clearly not stand for it, telling the club media after the Wednesday loss: 'Frustration isn’t the right word because that would suggest we were in the game and deserved something. But we didn’t – we were awful for 90 minutes. We made terrible decisions that invited pressure and gave away a free-kick to the most dangerous set-piece taker in the league.

'We got exactly what we deserved. We couldn’t pass the ball to anyone in a Pompey shirt and were just bullied. I could easily have made 11 substitutions at the break because nobody out there for us was good enough.

'When you give a side something to hold on to, it’s always going to be a tough challenge and we couldn’t get back in the contest. We spoke in the week about how we needed to right at the top of our game and not let any complacency creep in.

'It’s something that’s happened before – most notably when we beat Leeds and then lost to Plymouth last season. We know how tough the Championship is – and if anyone thinks they’re going to get an easy game then we’ve got a problem.

'I can take having ups and downs, I can accept losing football matches, but what I can’t accept is being beaten like that. It was unacceptable. There were some concerning things that I saw – both individually and collectively – that we’ll have to put right and there are plenty of other players who are champing at the bit.'

Fans will probably find out on Wednesday how severe Conor Shaughnessy's hamstring injury is but he seems likely to be out for several weeks. There are also injury concerns over Josh Murphy and Minhyeok Yang.

Chaplin, as an Ipswich employee, will not be able to play at Portman Road and there's been speculation Mousinho may move John Swift into a more advanced role in the front four and find a new deeper midfield partner for Andre Dozzell, with Luke Le Roux and Marlon Pack the obvious contenders.

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