After his side were outclassed by Sheffield United on Wednesday night, Tony Mowbray spoke to the club’s media team following Rovers’ 2-0 home defeat, which also saw the loss of the 25-league game unbeaten record, which stretched back over a year ago.
“We anticipated that tonight would have been tough, especially after studying their shape and how they play. They are a really honest, hard-working team who have been together for a while, similarly to how we are. They also have some really good technical players in their ranks which showed today. We knew this game would have been a big ask for us, but I thought we dug in well and we felt their quality in the first-half, which forced us to sit back meaning we couldn’t gain a foothold in the game, which came due to their extra man in midfield.
“I toyed all week with the thought of starting the game in a back 3 formation, however I thought that changing our shape may have sent the wrong message to the team. I thought that changing our shape would have suggested that we feared them, so I decided against starting with a 3. At half-time, our circumstances changed, and we needed to get a foothold in the game, so I altered into a 3-5-2 in order to match them and try and pressure them. We were much better in the second-half, but funnily enough, we conceded. Although we didn’t have any glaring chances, we were able to craft some opportunities throughout the game.
“There will be no inquest from me, because I know how hard the team have worked. Unfortunately for us, we were beaten by the better side tonight. Tonight’s game was about fine margins, but they’re a good team and it’s there for everyone to see. Every team loses games and it’s part and parcel of football, we just need to learn that and keep striving to react to it in our next game.
“I think their first goal came a little bit against the run of play. I think when we do change formation during a game, it takes the lads a bit of time to adapt into the system we’re switching to. I’m not sure if we were in a 3 or a 4 back when they opened the scoring, but by trying to cause them some problems by changing our formation, we’ve confused ourselves and let them come forward and score a goal. Derrick (Williams) was at times part of a back 3 and at times, playing as left-back behind Amari’i (Bell), but I’m not sure how we were set up when they scored.
“Although conceding the first was frustrating, I’ve told the lads in the dressing room that I’ll have to take responsibility for their second, because I was telling Bradley (Dack) to leave their player in order to set up for a counter, but unfortunately the lad he was tracking created their second goal, which made it harder for us to get back into it. Football is about risks and rewards, and unfortunately, we took a risk which didn’t pay off.
“As I’ve been telling the lads, the defeat isn’t a big problem, because that’s how football works. The important part now, is their reaction on Saturday against Bolton. They need to remain strong and close, rather than breaking away and start blaming each other, which will help nobody. We need to put this defeat behind us and move onto Saturday, where, if we can win, will ultimately see us end this week with a higher point total than we’ve been getting in recent weeks, where we’ve had 2 draws in a week.
“Tonight’s game didn’t have a plethora of chances for either side, and we never expected the game to be free-flowing, because it was always going to be a tight and cagey affair. Yet, saying that, a 2-0 scoreline is slightly emphatic. We shouldn’t look too deep or overanalyse tonight’s game, simply because we were beaten by the better side. This team are an amazing bunch who have worked really hard, but ultimately, we have played and will play teams who are going to be better than us this season, so we need to accept that we’re going to end up as the loser in some games.
“We need to turn our attentions to Saturday now, where we travel to Bolton. Tomorrow’s session (Thursday) will be a cooling down session where we check on everyone’s wellbeing, but also analyse tonight’s game and Friday will see us go through some tactics and some pre-game preparation in order to prepare the team for Saturday.
“I’m not too downbeat about the loss of the unbeaten run. We need to take the negativity and use it to try and start another similar run. I knew we were coming up against a good side tonight, and although I don’t like to lose, I think it was important to put our season into perspective as we’ve played against a team who now find themselves off the top spot on goal difference, which shows how well they’ve started their campaign. We’ve worked extremely hard to come from League 1 and to get to this point, so we need to enjoy playing these teams, despite the fact that they were pretty good.”
