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'By far our best': Upbeat Portsmouth boss John Mousinho encouraged by Darmstadt display The Blues brought down the curtain on their summer friendlies with a goalless draw against the Bundesliga side John Mousinho insists he has been reassured after Pompey’s players saved the best until last at SV Darmstadt. The Blues brought the curtain down on their pre-season friendly programme with a goalless draw at the Bundesliga 2 side on Saturday. Opposition keeper Marcel Schulen - and the left-hand post - kept the hosts in the game in the first half, although there was barely any goalmouth action at either end after the break. Nonetheless, for Mousinho it still represented a huge improvement on the awful 3-1 defeat at Wycombe the previous weekend, which had left him fuming. And the Blues head coach feels far more encouraged with the new season now just a week away. ‘It was a big step up from where we were last week’ He told The News: ‘I was pretty pleased with the performance. It was a big step up from where we were last week (Wycombe), which was a disappointing result and a disappointing performance. ‘We have made the step up against pretty good European opposition who want to keep the ball and have the ability to spin in behind, as we saw in the first half, so it was a really good test for us. Off the back of that, I thought we saw some really encouraging things. ‘It was by far our best performance of pre-season and I’m pretty satisfied with where we have got to, particularly off the back of last week. ‘After Wycombe, we haven’t done anything differently to what we've been doing pre-season. We got back in on Monday and highlighted the areas where we needed to improve on the video, they were stark. ‘The first goal against Wycombe was a perfect example. We gave the ball away, we didn't recover, we didn’t track, we didn’t tackle and we didn’t block in the box. It was the bare minimums we weren’t doing. ‘Maybe we got lured into a false sense of it being a pre-season friendly and thinking we could coast, which we obviously couldn't - we got undone by a good Wycombe side. ‘Against Darmstadt, we definitely didn’t coast through it and, thankfully, in terms of the lads’ performance and the output, it was much, much better. ‘We are closer in terms of fitness, we are closer in terms of having those basic levels of commitment. I still think we’ve got a fair bit to do in terms of who we want to bring in and where we want to be as a squad, but we do have another month left. ‘There is a lot of urgency around having those players in as quickly as possible, but we also have to be patient to get the right players in.’ Season starts at West Ham United in the Carabao Cup The Blues’ season starts next weekend with the trip to West Ham in the Carabao Cup - and more than 9,000 travelling supporters backing them. With signings still required, Mousinho continues to assess what will be the best available side to field against Nuno Espirito Santo’s men for that 2026-27 season opener. Inevitably, it will be impacted by injuries, with Harvey Blair the latest pre-season casualty, while Josh Murphy’s long-awaited comeback date has now been pushed further back. But with a first appearance for Luke Brooke-Smith at Darmstadt, while pairing Thomas Waddingham and Colby Bishop in attack during the second half, Mousinho believes he learnt plenty from their German trip. ‘Gave us a couple of different ideas’ He added: ‘Saturday gave a couple of different ideas, but we made plenty of changes. ‘We made three changes at half-time to have a look at, not necessarily a different formation altogether, but playing two up top and Colby dropping in slightly. Then a couple of other changes within that. ‘So we will see over the next few days, I’ll have a look at that performance and see where I feel we've got to.’