With a brace to his name on his first start for the club, after re-joining on a permanent basis, Adam Armstrong revealed his delight after twice finding the net during Rovers’ 5-1 thumping of Carlisle United, during the 2018-19 Carabao Cup 1st round.
“It was great to grab myself a couple of goals, as we came here looking to get the win whilst putting on a good performance for the fans. We’re delighted to have had such an early start which allowed us to push on and get lots of goals, which sees us leave here with our name in the hat for the 2nd round draw. The start was perfect and scoring 2 goals on my first start back, made it even better, but now we have to focus on Saturday’s game, as well as the next round of the cup.
“The goals were the type that just fall to you. Dacky (Bradley Dack) played a great ball through for my second. It was one of those goals where I’m used to being in the position that I was in, and all I needed was the ball through in order to slot it past the ‘keeper. It’s always nice to get an early goal and it was one that allowed us to grow in confidence and play our natural game.
“Dacky and I have a good relationship, both on and off the pitch and that shows in our play. We’ve done well tonight to combine and get the goals we needed tonight, along with Kasey’s (Palmer) strike, so hopefully we can transfer our play from tonight, into the league, starting from Saturday’s trip to Hull.
“Brad was brilliant tonight. I’ve played a lot of games with him now, and he’s different class. If he keeps on performing and putting in the performances that can help us win games, he can show everyone just how good of a player he is. His goal return is phenomenal, especially for the position he plays in. He’s a goalscoring attacking midfielder and he’s doing his bit to try and help the team get the wins. We’ve got a lot of attacking players who can unlock defences and create a lot of chances and opportunities to score in every game, and tonight was no different as we managed to grab the win.”
The forward was asked whether he was frustrated about being denied a potential hattrick, after he was withdrawn by his manager with around half-an-hour left in the game.
“I wasn’t really bothered about getting replaced with a hat-trick still on the line, because it’s about the team effort. Being withdrawn early allows me more time to rest, recover and get myself ready for Saturday, which we’re all looking forward to.
“I prefer playing down the middle purely because it’s where I’ve been based all of my life, so I know what it’s all about and what runs to make. Today was just a case of being in the right place at the right time for me to receive the passes and thankfully I put them away.”
Prior to the completion of the interview, Armstrong talked about Saturday’s game, away at Hull City and what he was expecting from, not only the hosts, but from Rovers, as well.
“We’re going to take a lot of confidence from this game. The Championship is a hard league, and I think coming here, getting the victory and scoring 5 goals is only going to help us in the league and hopefully we can go to Hull and get the win for the fans.
“We met in last season’s FA Cup, which was a tough game, and despite them being a good side, I think we’re as good and are able to match them. We’ve got to go there and put in a similar performance to the one we’ve shown tonight, in order to try and get the 3 points. We’ve shown that we’re capable of going toe to toe against sides in this division. Last Saturday against Millwall, we kept the ball well, but we just needed to put our chances away, as on another day, we could have won. Tonight’s win was good, but we need to turn our focus back to the league to try and get our first league win of the season against Hull City.”
