With Rovers’ falling to their second successive defeat away at recently-relegated Fulham, Blues boss Tony Mowbray reflected on the 2-0 loss after the affair, with the club’s media team.
“Football is about getting points and we need to find a way of turning these decent performances into victories. We’ve had a similar game to last week really, not enough efforts on goal and we’ve lacked that cutting edge in the final third, despite getting into some very good positions, especially in the first-half where I thought we were the more dominant team. During the first period, I thought that, if anyone was going to win today, it would have been us, due to the number of chances we created when we got forwards, and yet it feels like a bit of an injustice standing here having been on the end of a 2-0 defeat, but that’s football, even though the game wasn’t as easy as the scoreline potentially suggests.
“We needed to score when we were on top during the first-half, and we failed to do that, and ultimately paid the price. I can’t remember them really building some pressure towards our goal that saw us hanging on for dear life, but it’s frustrating how the game has seemingly slipped through our fingers, due to our lack of ruthlessness. We need to keep working on our finishing in the final third and need to start punishing teams when we steal the ball off of them, because we have the energy, quality and craft to create the chances, as the first-half showed. I thought our game plan worked well today, but ultimately, we’ve come away with no points.
“I thought our plan was well executed in the first period, but Fulham have some very good players, some of which are Premier League quality. Blackburn Rovers fans will know all about Tom Cairney from his spell with the club, and you can’t give a player of that quality the time and space on the ball to do what he did today, because he’ll either punish you with an assist or a screamer like today. We did what we set out to do, in the first-half and as I said, I thought the game plan worked well as we kept taking the ball off them in their half and applied a lot of pressure, yet the bit of quality in the final third was lacking today.
“Some would say that we’re lacking someone who could do what Cairney did, but goals like that don’t happen every week. In contrast, we’ve had a couple of free headers through Sam Gallagher, that, on another day, would have dropped on the inside of the post, rather than agonizingly on the wrong side of the post. Adam Armstrong also had a good opportunity, where he used his pace to get beyond his man but failed to pick the right pass out. Other than that, we’ve done a lot of good stuff in terms of creating chances and stopping them overpowering us. I’ve told the players in the dressing room that, if we maintain that standard of play throughout the season, we’ll be fine and we’ll be a problem for a lot of teams in this division, we just have to keep working hard and believing in our abilities.
“There’s always a bottom line when you come away from home. Sometimes you come and get battered by a side who are head and shoulders above you, but that wasn’t the case today. I thought there was very little between the teams today, despite a lot of people putting Fulham down as candidates for automatic promotion. Although the scoreline would suggest there’s a gap, having managed hundreds of football matches, I can tell that there was little difference in quality between the sides today, and we could have easily come away with a 2-0 victory had things gone our way.
“I though both Derrick (Williams) and young Tosin (Adarabioyo), who made his debut today, both played well. I can’t really remember Fulham pinning us back and fizzing crosses across our box. I think you have to put it into perspective. Aleksandar Mitrović is a beast of a man, who is also a Premier League quality striker, yet I thought the pair dealt well with him for a vast majority of the game. Despite saying all that, I can’t hide the fact that we’ve lost 2-0. It was the type of game where, I could have easily been standing here with a big smile on my face celebrating a 2-0 victory against one of the favourites for the title, yet I thought the central defenders did exceptionally well today, baring in mind that it’s an area of the pitch that I’ve been critical of, for a long time.
“Darragh (Lenihan) wasn’t available today after picking up a knee injury in training. We’re hoping it’s not serious, but we don’t have a timeframe for his return at the moment. He’s got a bit of fluid on the back of his knee. Ryan (Nyambe) has got concussion, which he picked up from the behind-closed-doors game against Manchester United in the week. He’s going through the 6-day period where he can’t be involved in any football, so hopefully he should be ready for Tuesday’s cup game.”
