In the wake of Rovers’ second home game of the week, Rovers boss Tony Mowbray spoke with the club’s media team regarding Tuesday’s frustrating 1-1 draw against Plymouth Argyle, his potential team selection for today’s game vs Portsmouth and how he believed the newly-promoted side would threaten the Blues during the game.
“I think Portsmouth are a different proposition to Plymouth, I think they’ll come with a more positive approach. They’ve got some decent technical footballers who can hurt you and pick you off if you’re not right and looking at their results, they’ve had a mixed bag. It’s just the next game for me, I keep telling the players not to worry about their name or the colour of their shirts; they’re all just the next opposition for us really, it’s about what we do and how we perform that’ll hopefully get us the points.
“We sat in this morning watching some of Tuesday night’s clips. I think we had 35 clips worth of chances, which weren’t just necessarily shots and we talked about what we could improve on to make the shots hit the target and how we could work the opposition goalkeeper. The finer details are not quite right and we asked the players questions on their play-style, ‘could you have had a better touch?’, ‘could you have opened your body up?’, ‘could you have made this run?’. Hopefully there’s a benefit as we’ve been working with the strikers today in training so if we can create anywhere near as many opportunities on Saturday, as we did on Tuesday, hopefully we’ll score more than one goal.
“A lot of the players could have scored on Tuesday, from the defenders up-to the strikers; they all had chances to put the ball into the back of the net. The subs also came on and had a positive impact on the game as well but it was a frustrating game that we can’t dwell on, as I said after the game, there are plenty more games left where we’ll score more than the one we’re managing to stick in the net at the moment, which we have to focus on, but simultaneously, not leave ourselves too vulnerable to the counter-attack. It almost feels quite nice to have a 4-2 or a 5-2 win but whilst we’ve been focusing on the defensive side of the pitch and keeping it really solid with the personnel that we’ve got available to us, we’ve got to balance the mind-set of ‘it’s alright if we concede a few goals, but let’s try and score some to make up for it.’
“We’ve found a way to win football matches to be honest, by being really solid, by keeping clean sheets and winning games that way. I’m just a bit uncomfortable playing without the ball as I’d rather be in possession of it like we were against Plymouth and it is a change in mind-set that allows the players to know how they’re going to set up and how they’re going to play. Hopefully, particularly at home, there’ll be more goalmouth action and more goals, but we need to play in the opposition half whilst also being wary of the counter-attack. We have to work hard and work on the things that we need to develop, the strikers are all competing for starting berths in the team, they’re all going to get opportunities to play and it’s down to them to put the ball in the net and then there’s every likelihood that they’ll play in the next one and keep going, but it’s healthy competition, someone has to grab it and assert themselves as the main man.”
Mowbray was asked whether any of the strikers had currently made their mark or caught his eye enough to assert themselves as the main striker in the team.
“Not really, they’ve spread the goals around a bit. I think (Marcus) Antonsson has a few, (Dominic) Samuel’s scored a few, Danny (Graham) has had limited opportunities of course but I thought he was a handful the other night and a lot of chances came off the back of his good work around the 18-yard box and the goal, of course, came from his through ball into Bradley (Dack). They’re all working hard, but at the end of the day, their job is to score goals, to help the team win matches and I would expect the hard work and goals to come side by side.
“I think that was the best we’ve seen of Danny this season; I think it’s been a long, difficult spell for him of getting his fitness where it needs to be, if we’re being brutally honest, to work really hard in every game, because I think this league, is a league where everybody can run, chase, close down and make life difficult for you. We have to do the same to the opposition, but I don’t think we’re good enough throughout the group to play the passing game that’s going to be enough to win games. We need to work, compete, close down and chase from the front, and that are the demands really. Danny’s grasping that, he’s working hard, and if he does that, whilst also adding goals, he’s got a very good chance of starting games.
“Danny’s a good finisher; he’s got the knowledge and the know-how. He’s at an age now where he knows it’s all about his body and what he can do and he’ll know when he can use his physicality against defenders and when he can’t. I’m happy to keep rolling the dice at the moment with the forwards and seeing who can score the goals and the combinations that we have to play, whether that’s two up top, which we played for a little bit, whether it’s Bradley underneath one striker, whether it’s two wingers or two hard-working midfield players, it’s a balance that we have to try and find in order to win the game in-front of us.
“I know there are goals in this team, we just have to find the right formula and the confident players who are scoring the goals will hopefully continue in that vein. The difficulty of course, is keeping them all going and believing that they’ve got a chance, and at this moment it’s easy for me to rotate because nobody’s actually grasped the chance and scored two in this game or a hat-trick in the other, which is what we need, we need someone who can start scoring on a regular basis.”
