As Rovers prepared for their bounce-back game at home to Oldham Athletic, following their first defeat in 18 league games, last week away at Plymouth Argyle, Rovers boss Tony Mowbray previewed the Oldham game as he spoke to the clubs’ media team about his potential team selection, the situation of the league table, and Oldham Athletic’s approach to the game.
“The squad is looking strong, I think. We’ve got a few players coming back now, who are training on a regular basis, so hopefully we can only get stronger as a group in order to create some competition in the squad for the starting eleven and the bench. Ultimately, the returning of players is a positive as if you pick up injuries along the way, it allows you to replace them with those who have returned to full fitness, which keeps the strength of the squad intact. You also get good headaches of choosing who to pick and having the right options, which allows you to make a decision on whether you’re going for power, speed or intensity in your selection.
“Those who haven’t been out for very long have a chance of playing on Saturday, whereas one or two others still need a week or so of training, before coming onto the bench in order to try and build their fitness back up to where it should be, which will then allow us to use them when we need them. They’re all good lads, and it’s difficult when you’ve got lots of good players at your disposal, but football is about getting the right balance in order to win games. Hopefully, Darragh (Lenihan) is only 90 minutes away from returning as he plays for the under-23s on Friday night, which will allow us to assess him and see how long he needs before he can come back and compete for a place in the side. With Darragh being out so long, he needs to make sure that his body feels right, so that he doesn’t break down again. He needs to play in training, like he would do on a matchday, in order to get his body back up-to the speed of the league games, rather than that of the under-23s.
“Charlie (Mulgrew) has trained this week and is looking alright. With someone like Charlie, what you’re keeping an eye out for, is a negative reaction from the injury. He could potentially come in and tell me that he’s not feeling up-to Saturday and that it was adrenaline that got him through this weeks’ training, so we have to wait and see how he is on the day of the game.
“This past week has been quite down for us. I think the intensity that we’ve been playing at recently, coupled with the three-game week, was a bit too much for the lads, so we gave them a few days off after the long trip back. We’ve had a few days rest in order to make sure that everyone is rested and fully energised for the weekend. Training has been good and has seen a lot of energy, mainly due to some of the players returning from injury looking like new signings. I’m anticipating a high intensity, high energy performance that will allow us to pick up the points.
“I think the side is capable of repeating the run that we’ve just been on. Every game is difficult and creates its own difficult challenge, but I think we just have to take one game at a time and try to focus on each game as it comes. Although we’ve got a few games in quick succession, including another long trip, this time down to Portsmouth, but we need to simply focus on the next game. We shouldn’t get too disappointed if we don’t get any points from certain games, as the days where we only get a draw, as we did in the 18-game unbeaten run will aid our fight, but if we win the next three on the spin, there will be no problem in losing the previous game. The key thing for us is the points tally, not the amount of games we go unbeaten. We just need to put the defeat – and any future defeats we have – behind us and re-focus our attentions onto the next game.
“I don’t like to set targets, but with 16 games left, if you give us another 30 points, that’ll see our total go up-to 90 points, which generally gets you promoted. However, that may not be the case this season, due to how well Wigan and Shrewsbury are doing. We just have to keep pushing and trying to get the three points in every game we play, as we know that Wigan and Shrewsbury won’t go away. We can’t affect any of Shrewsbury results now and we’ve only got the home game against Wigan in March left, so we have to do it all, ourselves now. We need to make sure that we’re ready for each game and we need to match the intensity and mentality that our opponents will have, whether we’re away from home or at Ewood Park.”
Mowbray concluded the interview by discussing the opponents, Oldham Athletic, by stating his opinion on the potential banana-skin that awaits the Blues on Saturday.
“The teams are all the same to me. There are no easy games in this division, and if anything, most of the games we’ve lost are, to sides in the bottom-half of the table. Somebody was talking to me earlier, about last season, the other day and how Rovers managed to get relegated, but still do the double over the likes of Newcastle United and Derby County. If we see ourselves as the ‘Newcastle United’ of this division, teams down the bottom, will want to, and can beat us and if there’s something not right on the day, or the defence isn’t functioning, you don’t deal with set-plays or your strikers are misfiring, you can lose any game, so we have to give massive respect to every side we play. I keep telling the players that they need to forget about where their opponents are in the league, the colour of the shirt they’re playing against and the name on the front and back, as it’s all about us and what we do and if we do everything correctly, then I’m sure the opposition will struggle against us.”
