John Mousinho pleased to see returning trio impress as Portsmouth beat Millwall

John Mousinho is thankful Portsmouth’s injury problems have ended after his side comfortably beat Millwall 3-1.

Zak Swanson, Adrien Segecic and Jordan Williams all scored impressive goals at Fratton Park as Pompey ended a six-match winless streak.

Mihailo Ivanovic pulled one back for Millwall, after Joe Bryan had seen red, but the hosts held on to climb up to 19th place in the Sky Bet Championship.

Forward Segecic, Callum Lang and goalkeeper Nicolas Schmid all returned from long-term injuries in the victory and Mousinho hailed the influence their return had on their team-mates.

The Portsmouth head coach said: “You can tell today that having those players back gave us a different dimension and dynamic in the game.

“It has boosted everyone this week to have those three players back. It adds competition and puts me in a better place in terms of selection.”

Swanson broke the deadlock, and almost the net, in style with a 20-yard piledriver into the top corner in the 22nd minute.

Australian Segecic, on his return from injury, saw his attempted cross flick off defender Tristan Crama and over Max Crocombe after the interval.

Lions midfielder Bryan saw red for a horror tackle on Lang but the visitors found a route back into the contest when Ivanovic fired the ball home from a corner.

However, Williams secured the home victory in the 89th minute with a fine solo run and brilliant finish past Crocombe.

Mousinho continued: “We obviously needed it in terms of points but more importantly lifting the morale at the entire football club.

“It was important to come back to Fratton and it felt more like a Portsmouth performance.

“We did so many of the things we wanted to do properly – we committed to the press, committed to playing, to going long – whatever it was I thought we committed to it really well.

“We need to make sure we get better and better. We have had a few false dawns this season and we’ve got to capitalise on this win.”

Millwall have now failed to win on their last four outings and boss Alex Neil said: “We certainly lack experience as a group at the moment.

“When you’ve got guys like Coops (Jake Cooper) and Lenny (Ryan Leonard) and Billy (Mitchell) and all these boys missing it’s naturally difficult for a lot of the other lads to come in and do it on a regular basis.

“You can manage to put them in here and there and get them some game time, which is good. That’s not the reason for the defeat.

“I think as a group we should have retained the ball better. We didn’t and then what happens is you end up having to press all the time.

“Then, when that happens, you’re tired when you get the ball back. I didn’t think we dealt with first balls up either.

“There’s one at the end, the lad punts it, and they end up getting a corner we don’t deal with the first header. They’re just basics for us that we are normally very good at.

“I think that the nature of the goals we conceded as well, particularly the second and the third for me, were extremely frustrating because I thought we should have done a lot better with both.”