Following Rovers’ 1-0 victory over Bradford City, which gave the Blues their first league victory of the season, Blackburn manager, Tony Mowbray, discussed his thoughts on the game with BBC Radio Lancashire.
“I’m happy to be able to enjoy the weekend for a change, football is about winning and the expectations for this club, which we set early on, are for us to be towards the top end of the table. I don’t think there’s a divine right to hit the ground running with, what is a new team, with a lot of players trying to adapt. The younger players who I’ve spoken to such as Samuel & Dack have to acclimatise really quickly, but I think they’re doing fine, however they have a lot of expectation on them to fire us to victory. Regardless, I’m standing here happy enough that we’ve come and beaten a team at a place in which they haven’t lost at for 18 months.
“I said to the team today, “there’s your challenge today, here’s a team that hasn’t lost at home for 30-odd football matches, let us show the quality that Blackburn Rovers in this season in League One are going to possess and you’ll be the team that breaks the streak”. But we have to build on that now; we have a big game on Wednesday as the fans reminded us today and then an even bigger game in my eyes next Saturday (at home to MK Dons), so we have to start accumulating points now.”
Mowbray also talked about the passion and the desire that the players had prior to kick-off and how that contributed to the whirlwind start that Rovers had as they picked up two attempts at goal within the first couple of minutes. “We were almost on fire in the dressing room before kick-off, that’s what I was telling them in the huddle at the end, the performance is more important than life and death to the fans, they pay a lot of money to be here and they don’t want their weekends spoilt by a lacklustre performance, they want to see passion, emotion and their team carrying a badge of honour.
“My frustration at half time was that we lacked a bit of quality in that final third, we should have taken a bit more care with our finishing, crossing or the final pass which could have increased our advantage. Despite that, I’m happy, but we have to build on this result. We talked about attacking towards our own fans; I said ‘they’re here, enjoying themselves and having a good day, let’s celebrate with them if you can, make sure they can see your emotion and how much you care, when you score a goal.’”
The boss was also questioned in regards to Bradley Dack, who was replaced after an hour due to an injury. “Bradley’s injury is similar to the one he picked up at Southend, however he came off today with a tight hamstring, rather than a hamstring tear. Bradley’s worked extremely hard this week in training. I’ve had a few chats with him regarding his lifestyle, he’s here to be a footballer and score goals, he’s not interested in anything else and he’s worked extremely hard. If anything his workload this week has been too high to get through a full 90 minutes but hopefully he won’t be out long.
“The boys actually watched Dack’s penalty appeal at half time and the Bradford player has grabbed him round the neck. I think if the officials had seen it, it would have been a penalty. It’s not about me, it’s about the players and they have to believe in themselves. I try to give ownership of my football teams to the players. I manage, I organise and try to inspire them but they have to take ownership of what’s required to win games, so the senior players have to drive everybody.
“They’ve seen today what it takes to win in this league; the game on Wednesday will look after itself in terms of adrenaline and atmosphere. I think we have to match MK Dons for their work rate, tackling, chasing and fight next Saturday, but we also have to not give stupid goals away. I have to comment on the fact that we had no Ryan Nyambe today and obviously no Darragh Lenihan for around two weeks, but I thought (Elliott) Ward did exceptionally well today after a disappointing performance last week, but he rebounded pretty well and showed his strength of character. (Charlie) Mulgrew did what he does most weeks, (Paul) Caddis sat in and (Derrick) Williams had his best game of the season, so credit to them.
“(Scott) Wharton shouldn’t have been on the bench today because he hasn’t played since the Barrow game in pre-season and he’s only had a few days of training but you know, we need to recruit in the defensive areas. There are still a couple of weeks to go and we’re working really hard behind the scenes to find the right player. There are lots of options, but when you commit and he becomes your footballer, you have to try and get it right.”
The absence of Ryan Nyambe was also talked about and Mowbray disclosed why the 19-year old was unavailable. “He damaged his knee in training during the open day at Ewood, he just clashed knees and it’s resulted in some bruising on his kneecap. There’s nothing on a scan or an x-ray, but he’s very sore, so we’ll have to wait and see.”
