Following Rovers’ 3-2 defeat away at Luton Town on the final day of the 2019-20 season, which saw the Hatters stay up by the skin of their teeth, Tony Mowbray reflected on the game and the campaign as a whole by vocalising his concerns about his side’s inconsistency over the 46-game season. The gaffer also gave an update regarding the absence of Stewart Downing, which left some fans wondering whether the one-time England international had played his final game for Rovers.
“I’m really frustrated and disappointed after tonight’s game. We worked hard to try and turn up tonight against Luton Town, who with all due respect, aren’t a big football club. They’re a proud club with a proud history, but the reality of the matter is that they’ve spent most of the season in the bottom three. If you have aspirations of finishing in a playoff or automatic promotion spot, you have to be beating the teams down the bottom. It looked for a while that we were cruising during the first-half, yet I’d warned the players before the game, that there wouldn’t be a moment in this game where we’d be cruising, due to what was at stake for Luton. I told the team that Luton would be fighting for their lives and scrapping for every ball, yet we looked very comfortable at 1-0 up. Maybe the intensity dropped after we went ahead? I’m a little hoarse now because I felt the intensity drop and I tried to rev the team up, yet we went behind to two really poor set-piece goals. Their second goal off the corner was terrible. The ball came in, below head height, and everybody missed it? That’s unacceptable. Although Hayden (Carter) can be deemed unlucky with their first goal, tonight was an eye opener for the boy after he was so good at the weekend against Reading. Tonight, he had to face some experienced forwards and maybe found it tough to deal with the quality within the league. Hayden’s only a young guy, so tonight would have provided him an experience to build on, a bit like Tyler’s (Magloire) experience last season. Tyler had a 3-0 win against Wigan Athletic in his first game, and then he felt the true nature of the division in the next game, when we lost to Sheffield Wednesday. Hayden has had a similar sort of experience to Tyler, but hopefully he can learn from it going into next season.
“I get annoyed because I want to fight, if that makes sense? I want the team to fight for every ball, whilst also playing football that is aesthetically pleasing. I want them to control the game and the pitch. At times, we do that brilliantly and then we almost fall off a cliff. It’s frustrating because I feel as if at times, the players are 8 or 9/10 and then at other times, they’re not at 6 or 7/10, their performances drop to 2 or 3/10, which is baffling! It makes me think, ‘what are you doing?!’ It feels a bit inconsistent and ultimately, the teams that are right at the top of the league, are the most consistent in the league. That’s what we ultimately have to strive for. How many of this current crop are good enough to find consistency week in, week out in order to come on the journey with us? They are the tough decisions that we have to make over the coming weeks.
“To be successful in this division, you have to fight as well as play with the ball. I think we’ve got that element within our team, because at times throughout this season, we’ve fought like tigers in certain games, yet the ability to both fight and play is inconsistent. I’ve talked before about ‘soldiers and artists’. You need them within a game as well as over the course of the season. Ideally, if you’ve got people who can do both, then you’ve got a team on your hands. If you don’t have both, then you can’t get to the top of the division because you need a fine balance between the two. I know it sounds terrible that I’m about to talk about officials, and I’m sure some people will be thinking ‘here we go again’, but I thought they managed the game horrifically tonight. I know how much tonight meant to Luton, and I congratulated Nathan Jones on the outcome, but the referee had to take control of the game and stop the time-wasting. The lack of control from the officials compounded my frustration on the game and how it panned out.
“There’s no news regarding Stewart Downing’s absence today. He’s in the same boat as a few others regarding the contractual situation. Stewy was aware that I wanted to play some younger players tonight, like (Jacob) Davenport, who’s been injured for most of his time at the club. I wanted to give the likes of Jacob and John (Buckley) time on the pitch. I know what Stewy can do, he’s been one of our best players all year. We probably could have done with him tonight, as the game got more and more frantic. Yet, I wouldn’t want to put on a 36-year old, when I have some young lads wanting to show what they can do. We made that decision to leave Stewy at home today, and we’ll see over the coming weeks what the story with him is, moving forward.
“I’m pleased for Adam (Armstrong) after his awards this week. He’s done his job this year. He’s been a lad who can win a game on his own by doing something special. Other times, he hasn’t hit those heights, including tonight where I thought he was below par, despite scoring. That’s just my opinion, of course, but I thought he played too deep tonight, whereas I would have liked him to have been on the shoulder of their defenders. He was trying to do too much, by coming short and trying to show he was a good technician when all he had to do was run in-behind and wait for (Lewis) Holtby or (Joe) Rothwell to slide him in. I get frustrated when the players don’t follow the instructions asked of them, but it’s probably wrong to single Adam out, because he wasn’t the only one to fall into that category, tonight. He’s been amazing all season and we love him to bits. He’s a fantastic kid who wants to learn, work hard, score goals and help the team be successful.”
