Portsmouth boss John Mousinho was delighted to leave Middlesbrough with a point despite conceding a last-minute equaliser at the Riverside.
Pompey looked set for their first Championship win of the season thanks to Christian Saydee’s first-half double, only for substitute Tommy Conway to score a 90th-minute penalty for Michael Carrick’s side
Boro had 29 shots on goal and Mousinho admitted a point was the least the hosts deserved, but praised his players for preserving their unbeaten start to the campaign after draws with Leeds and Luton.
“As it got closer to full-time I thought we might hold on in there, but ultimately we probably conceded a few too many opportunities and on balance Middlesbrough deserved to win the game,” said the Portsmouth boss.
“To come away with a point is a really positive result.
“They didn’t punish us with the chances they created. It’s a really interesting one because if the game goes to 2-2 a bit earlier in the second half I think we change our mentality and play better than we did. But we sat in and sat in and sat in and got away with a few bits.
“Will (Norris, Portsmouth’s goalkeeper) dug us out of a couple of holes and there was some last-ditch defending, but I do think the mentality would have changed if we had conceded earlier. It did straight away as soon as it went to 2-2.
“It’s difficult to come to places like this, so credit to the lads for coming away with a point. We invited a bit too much pressure and sat deep and allowed Middlesbrough to play centrally.
“I look back at the goal and there’s a run off one of our players and we give the penalty away. There’s plenty to improve on but there was plenty of good play from Middlesbrough.”
Portsmouth got off to the perfect start when Saydee struck after just two minutes but Matt Clarke levelled for Boro against his former club nine minutes later.
Clarke was then involved in a defensive mix-up with goalkeeper Seny Dieng that led to Portsmouth and Saydee’s second goal, which looked set to be the winner until Conway kept his nerve from the spot after Isaiah Jones had been fouled.
Boro have four points from their opening three games and boss Carrick said: “I thought there were a lot of good things in the game for us.
“I thought we were okay – decent enough – last week at Derby, but we were very good at times today.
“We’re just giving ourselves a lot to do with the errors. For me, I’m judging it over a period of time through the game – how it looks, what we’re trying to do, success we’re getting from it – an individual error is the other side of that.
“Take that error out and over the three games we haven’t given much away at all, we’ve had a lot of shots, a lot of good play in and around the box and I thought today particularly was some of our best play in that area against a side who had a lot to hold on to.
“There was a lot of positives really, overall. It’s not like there is a lot going wrong within the whole performance.”
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