Following Rovers’ emphatic 4-2 victory over Blackpool, in the re-scheduled Lancashire derby, Rovers boss Tony Mowbray discussed his thoughts regarding the match – whilst also praising the travelling support – to the club’s media team.
“It was a really hard fought victory, I thought Blackpool were a good side, who gave us defensive problems tonight, but I thought we were really clinical, as we have been recently, but teams will start to become warier of us on the change of possession I think, but we have to keep going in order to maintain this form.
“I thought we were under the cosh for most of the first half, but we’ve been really clinical over the past month or so, which is what the quality in our squad has to do as seen by the great finishes by Antonsson and Dack. You can’t go into every game expecting to dominate it, especially against a decent, well drilled, football team such as Blackpool, but overall, I’m pleased for the players who have put in maximum effort over the past 10 days and have, as a result, reaped their rewards; I’m also pleased for the fans who have travelled in huge numbers once again and I’m delighted that we’ve been able to give them a good performance.
“My team-talk at half-time was still quite aggressive as you could see that Blackpool were creating some decent chances and we were waiting to get beat to be honest. We made a tactical change during the break because we weren’t spread out enough, we were all around the ball because I’ve stressed so much about second balls, but as a result, we ended up forgetting how to play when were actually in possession. Despite us getting the fourth goal, the game became a little bit edgy once they got it to 4-2, because you wouldn’t want it to get to 4-3 in order to give them a bigger chance of getting back into the game. I was watching QPR vs Brentford on Monday, where QPR fought back from 2 goals down to get a draw by scoring two in added time, so I was hoping that we weren’t going to suffer a similar fate.
“Charlie Mulgrew is at centre-half and is level top goalscorer in the league alongside Marcus Antonsson, so you can eulogise all you like about him. I think we’re doing a good job of spreading the goals around the team, ideally you would want someone who could score you 20-25 goals a season, but at this moment, the team are doing a good job of spreading the goals out. It was great to see Paul Downing score, as did Bradley Dack and Antonsson but besides the goals, we created some great chances; Marcus hit the post, Bradley has a shot on the 6-yard line that should have gone in, but in summary, I’m pleased as it was a tough game that we came out on top of.
“I think Danny Graham will be disappointed that he wasn’t able to cap off his decent performance with a goal. I remember him having one good chance with a header at the back post that was cleared off the line, but Danny did very, very well. We can all see how good he is with his body, he gives us another dimension and it’s valuable that he can take the weight of a game on his shoulders really, by his ability to hold up the ball in the final third of the pitch.”
In addition to questions regarding his team’s performance, Mowbray was also asked in regards to the fans and their tremendous support, which saw around 2,200 fans make the short trip to the seaside.
“Our job is to make football enjoyable for the fans that pay their hard earned money to come and watch us, and long after I’ve gone, the fans will still be supporting their club, so whilst I’m here I’ll try and entertain them, put a team out on the pitch that can win games, and give them a good time, particularly in this league. If we were to find ourselves in the league above, the task instantaneously becomes more difficult, with clubs spending around £50 million during the transfer window. Saying that, I think that Sheffield United have shown this season that some hard work and organisation can go a long way in the Championship. Without getting ahead of ourselves, we have to work really hard, take each game as it comes and try to pick up points.
“We have to keep the momentum going. I think teams set up slightly differently against teams that score a lot of goals, in that they don’t commit men forward knowing that they could potentially concede if possession turns over. However, saying that, every game is tough in this league, as we were shown by our first two games, so we just have to stay focused and continue on a game-by-game basis.”
