PORTSMOUTH boss John Mousinho admitted his side had “got away with one” after they scored a late winner to beat Millwall 2-1 at Fratton Park.

The two sides played out a scrappy contest on the south coast amid terrible weather conditions, with both sides gifting the other a goal in the first half.

Pompey then scored the decisive goal in the 80th minute when Ebou Adams burst into the box, and after his initial effort was blocked, Jake Cooper’s attempted clearance came off Thomas Waddingham and went into the back of the net.

“Delighted with the three points,” Mousinho said. “My overall feeling during the game and now is that this is the first time this season we’ve probably got away with one.

“We nicked the win off the back of a poor start to the second half, having to defend and giving Millwall far too much in terms of impetus in the game.

“It was inevitable that in one of these games in the run, we might not be at our fluid best. But we stuck in, and we did everything else really well. The level of performance and some of the chances, I don’t think we deserved to win the game. But we earned ourselves a bit of luck with that desire, that work rate, the ability to stick in games, and we haven’t had a huge amount this year.”

Millwall’s goal came from Pompey goalkeeper Nicholas Schmid passing the ball straight to Jenson Metcalfe, who calmly curled the ball into the corner of the net.

“The goal, that’s entirely me,” Mousinho said. “If I’m asking the lads to play, then that’s going to happen.

“The response was very good in terms of not just going, ‘Right, we’re just going to keep going direct.’ Against a Millwall side that have Crama, Cooper, Taylor, Sturge as back four, we can go direct all we want, but we weren’t getting it up. It was about either playing or going beyond.

“When we did, I think the build-up to the first goal was actually from Nicolas’ longer ball in beyond, where we’re not competing for it and trying to come out with that first contact; we end up getting a free kick.

“I was really pleased with the response. We didn’t go under, and we kept trying to play.”