Portsmouth boss John Mousinho felt his side were on the wrong end of a decision to disallow a goal in the second half of their goalless draw with Norwich City

Connor Ogilvie converted from a corner after Angus Gunn had punched the ball into his path from the initial cross, only for referee Andrew Kitchen to adjudge that winger Matt Ritchie had fouled City’s goalkeeper.

In a night of limited goal-mouth action, it proved to be a decisive moment in the contest, and Mousinho felt the match officials made the wrong verdict.

“I’ve seen it back, so it’s easy for me to say, but Matt Ritchie is by the goalkeeper; Angus Gunn puts two hands on Matt and pushes him – so it’s either a penalty or a goal. I can’t see why it’s been disallowed,” he told reporters after the clash.

“I spoke to the ref about it, and we had a good conversation. I thought the ref was very, very good, to be fair, all night.

There were a couple of big decisions that I’m obviously disagreeing with him about not getting right, but we’ve got the benefit of a replay, and I thought it was a goal. Whether we did enough to win the game, I don’t know, but I definitely thought we edged it.

“I can’t really remember Nico [Schmid] being tested. Having said that, I can’t really remember [Angus] Gunn being tested too much, either. I think both sides got into really good areas and will both be disappointed not to have worked the goalkeeper a bit more.”

After a 3-0 victory over Bristol City over the weekend, Mousinho reacted with pride at the performances that helped Pompey climb out of the Championship’s bottom three ahead of more Championship fixtures on Wednesday evening.

“You don’t get given anything at this level, certainly when you come up against a side like Norwich,” he said.

“It’s a very difficult argument. Although we are thrilled with the performance, we are a little let down by the outcome. Don’t lose if you can’t win. With the clean sheet, we’ll proceed to Friday.

“I was overjoyed by it. It was superb from start to finish and was 97 minutes worth of graft from the lads, especially on the back of what we produced at the weekend, which was a huge physical output against a really good Championship side.

“We need to expect that at this level and do that consistently, but to perform back to back is the sign of a side that is getting there.”