After Rovers entered the draw for the 3rd round of the Carabao Cup, following their 4-1 defeat of Lincoln City, Tony Mowbray shared his thoughts on what was, a tough game for the Blues, despite the scoreline suggesting otherwise.
“Overall, I think we made the game a lot harder than it should have been, especially after such a great start when Joe (Nuttall) put us ahead. In my opinion, for the last 30 minutes of the first period, we were poor and did everything that I don’t like about football. We played too deep, we invited them to put balls into our box, we got bullied and ball retention wasn’t good enough. The second-half, however, was a different story as we sorted ourselves out. We retained the ball better, asked more questions of their defence and improved our quality in the final third, which showed with the goals. What I said in the dressing room, needs to stay between me and everyone in there, but the players got the feeling that I wasn’t happy, hence why they came out earlier than Lincoln for the second-half.
“The players had to react in the second-half, which they did, and I’m pleased about it. With total respect to Lincoln City, we’re playing a League 2 team, meaning we have to be miles better than them. Although I don’t mind losing, you still need to watch the game and know that there’s 2 leagues between the sides. In the first-half, I couldn’t tell who was in League 2 and who was in the Championship, but we put that right in the second-half and got through the tie.
“I’m delighted for the young lads that were part of tonight. Joe Grayson, Dan Butterworth, Willem Tomlinson and Joe Nuttall all did well in difficult circumstances, especially with Grayson and Butterworth making their debuts. I told all the lads in the dressing room beforehand, to make sure that this game is a good one, because those making their debuts will remember it for the rest of their lives, and thankfully they can now say that their debuts for the club saw them end the game on the winning side. It was a really difficult game for me to put Joe (Grayson) in, mainly due to their striker (Matt) Rhead in at centre-forward, who’s a handful for any experienced defender, let alone someone making their debut. The plan was, that because Joe is so good on the ball, we would have dominated on the ball, meaning that the physical confrontation would have been reduced, but we never got to the point of continued ball retention in the first-half.
“I thought (Joe) Rothwell showed flashes of his quality and his class on the ball, during the first-half, but there wasn’t enough of it from the team. Ultimately, however, we addressed it at half-time and came out and showed our quality in the second-half. There were good performances all over the pitch in the second-half. Danny (Graham) got his goal, Craig (Conway) showed his leadership qualities and the team functioned better after the break. We got the ball into the strikers more often in the second-half and we could have ended up with more than the 4 goals, but ultimately, the most important thing from today, is that we’re in the draw for the 3rd round.”
