Prior to Rovers’ game away at Valley Parade to face Bradford City, a side who are unbeaten in their last 31 league games at home, Rovers boss Tony Mowbray discussed team news, formations and the upcoming opposition, on Thursday, with BBC Radio Lancashire.
“There are one or two knocks and one or two didn’t train. Darragh Lenihan is still the only main injury concern for us, but hopefully everyone else will train on Friday apart from Darragh who’s still in the gym trying to run, pain free, but hopefully we’ll see him back on the grass soon. Scott Wharton isn’t fit as he missed a lot of pre-season, but he’s in light training. I’ve enjoyed watching him in training and I was frustrated with his lack of game time in pre-season due to his injury. Once he’s fit we’ll make a decision on whether he’s ready to play in our first team, or whether he’ll go out on loan.
“I’d honestly have to say that the formation we played had no impact on the result. Every supporter I speak to, wants to play two up front, but with total respect to the supporters, I’d have to say that it doesn’t guarantee you anything. Any team can play two up front, you need quality, you need to play towards the opposition goal, run in behind and threaten the space, you need to compete. I pick the team and the formation, which is a formation that the players have believed in and worked hard on throughout pre-season. It gives us control and on the day (against Doncaster) we didn’t play forward or we didn’t run in behind enough.
“A lot of teams in the Football League are probably playing it off the back of Chelsea winning the Premier League, but I played it at Coventry for a whole season and the season before that and we scored bags of goals and won loads of matches. It’s down to the personnel I suppose as any football manager will tell you that if you play 4 or 5 up front, you’ll leak goals and if you play 1 up front you might not score enough goals. If you play 3 up front – as we did – you hope to get the balance right, but as I say the performance wasn’t down to the formation, it was because we didn’t cause them a lot of problems going forward. With all due respect to the supporters, I do my job, if I don’t win my games, I lose my job and if we do win enough games, people won’t be worried about formations or personnel.”
The Rovers chief continued to talk about how the game against Bradford would not be easy and that Rovers would have to be at their best to come out as the victors at a side whose form is at their best, when they’re at home. Additionally, he also hinted that the potential deal for his midfield target, who has since been revealed to be West Brom’s Rakeem Harper, was close to falling through.
“We’ve been trying to find the right players for months and as the weeks go by it becomes difficult to get the ones you want, however despite the injury to Darragh, I don’t think you’ll not see many better back fours in this division regardless of whoever is playing in our side. However I do think we need strength in depth. We go into every game trying to win and I don’t want us to get too low when we lose, or too high when we win lots of games on the bounce and we’re getting praised but unfortunately in this job, everyone believes they can do it better than you, which you have to accept as a manager.
“I’m expecting a tough game from a team that have won their first two games and finished in the playoffs over the past couple of seasons. Valley Parade is an intimidating place to go, it’s generally a pretty full stadium which causes them to make a lot of noise and it’s reminiscent of their Premier League days with their big main stand at one side. They haven’t been beaten at home in a long time so we will be in for a tough game against a team who’ll be playing on the front foot. It’s a big test for away teams, as can be seen by the unbeaten record, but if we can win it, it’ll be a huge starting point in which we can use to push on and lift the spirits before the derby game in midweek. Having said this, I can’t guarantee anything to the supporters apart from 100% work and effort from the players and the staff.
“The deal for the midfielder has started to fall away, as he’s played in the Premier League since and despite it at one stage being close to completion. Despite that, the search for another target continues.”
