Prior to Rovers’ first home fixture in a fortnight, which sees the Blues host former back-to-back European Champions, Nottingham Forest, Tony Mowbray spoke to the clubs’ media team about the game, and what he was expecting from his side.
“Going into Saturday’s game, I don’t think we have any injuries that will rule anyone out of contention, bar the long-term absentees. Charlie Mulgrew is back on the grass, but he was training on his own as he tried to get himself back up to speed. We’ll check him on Friday and see whether he’ll be fine to get into the squad for Saturday. He looked fine in training, so I don’t think he’ll be missing, but we’ll have to wait and see. Charlie is a very important player for our club. He leads the team both on the field and in the dressing room and we’ll be glad to see him back on the pitch, if he gets through our checks.
“Jacob Davenport is another absentee who’s not far off coming into contention. Although, according to the medical department, he should be back amongst the group on Monday, there’s no rush to bring him back and into the side. He, like the other signings did, must train with the team for a week then maybe have an under-23s game, in order for us to assess where he is and whether he’s ready to come back into the first-team, after the international break.
“The back-to-back home games against Nottingham Forest and Sheffield United, that we have coming up, are chances for us to pick up some points, even though we have picked up some of our points on the road. The key for us, is consistency and although I understand that we still have the home record at Ewood – a majority of which came through League 1 – we just have to focus on our next opposition, which are Nottingham Forest. Forest have huge ambitions this year, which will make the game an intriguing tie and a tough test for us, similarly to when Brentford and Aston Villa came to Ewood. We just have to go out onto the grass, against Nottingham Forest and enjoy the game, whilst still putting in the effort the supporters expect.
“The spirit of this group is their biggest strength. They will look forward to the challenge of facing a team with big expectations, before realising the quality of the opposition that they’re up against. Once we get into the game, and they realise what they’re up against, it’ll be up to them to react in order to try and get us the points we want. That’s how football works. You can have the biggest heart, but ultimately once the game has begun, you’ll quickly find out whether you can live with the opposition or not.
“This group can generally deal with higher quality opponents because they have the ability to raise their game and we end up making life difficult for our opponents, even though they may have a spell in the game where they control the ball or pepper our goal. I think that this team, although have to work really hard, believe that they can win matches by making the life of our opponent difficult with our high pressing and intensity. We have 1 or 2 players who can light up any game of football, which we have to use. We try to play a brand of football which is exciting for our fans to watch, even if it doesn’t consist of 30 passes before a diving header tucks the ball home, it’s a game plan revolved around intensity and pressing the opposition, before nicking the ball and getting into the box as quickly as possible.
“I think our brand of football has been exciting at times, as it matches our high-performance levels, which allows us to ultimately, connect with the supporters who pay their money to see their team put the effort in. I believe that there are a lot of positives within our squad and our brand, but we’re just taking each game as they come.”
