After watching his side self-destruct in the early seconds of Rovers’ eventual 4-2 defeat to table-toppers Reading, Blues boss Tony Mowbray reflected on a disastrous defensive display, which saw his Rovers side lose their second successive home game. The gaffer also touched upon several absentees to the squad, including Bradley Johnson and Amari’i Bell, who were excluded from Tuesday’s squad after showing symptoms synonymous with COVID-19.
“There’s no disguising that we poor defensively, tonight. We haven’t come out of that game with any defensive credit. We’ve had four clean sheets from the seven games we played prior to tonight, but I thought that we had some nerves about us, for some reason. I think maybe, the physicality of their strikers (Yakou Méïté and Lucas João) put a doubt in our players’ minds. We played too deep, we didn’t engage them, we didn’t nick in-front or play on the front-foot which created the space for their midfielders to operate in, as our defence were too deep. It was everything we don’t preach, tonight, out of possession. Yet, in possession, I thought we showed a lot of good stuff. We looked very threatening on the offence, as if we were going to score goals.
“I said to them afterwards that, I think for around 30-odd minutes of the second-half, Reading didn’t even cross the halfway line, but the one time they did, the ball ended up in the back of our net. That can’t happen as we move forward. The players have to learn. I’ve said to them that we’re on a journey and that there are undoubtedly going to be bumps in the road, but you can’t go from being the team that we’ve been over the past few years, to the team we want to be, in terms of transitioning our style, without some setbacks along the way. I think, if we keep the levels up, we’re going to win plenty of matches. Let’s just keep going and remain positive, because it’s a long season. It’s a shame that there are no fans in the stadium at the moment, because I think it’ll be quite an exciting season for everybody, because we’re going to continue playing the way we do and I think there are a lot of good things to be positive about from this team, but we can’t defend like we did tonight if we want to win matches.
“I didn’t even see the opening goal, to be honest. Was it less than ten seconds? I’m not sure, but they’ve basically scored a tap-in, from the kick-off. It was quite unbelievable, but it probably set the tone for the evening. Yet, with the score at 3-2, with 15-20 minutes to go, I genuinely believed that we could go on and win the game, let alone draw it, because we kept putting so much pressure on them and kept asking questions of them due to our positional play around their box, but they ended up killing the game at 4-2 after crossing the halfway line for the first time in the half. You have to give Reading some credit, because they have some really talented individuals at the top end of the pitch. We’d worked on their frontmen this week, because their forwards can hurt you if you’re not concentrating or on your game and ultimately that came to fruition. That’s the disappointment tonight, because we’d talked about how we felt we could hurt them, because I didn’t feel that they were going to be a better team than us and dominate and yet we had to be wary of their strike force and that’s what punished us tonight.
“With all the good attacking play we showed, we weren’t patient enough. I wasn’t happy with them at the end and I’ve just had a go at them for knocking long balls forward. When they knocked the long balls forward, that gave Reading the opportunity to pick up the second balls which meant we were leaving ourselves exposed, allowing them to break away, with no defence back to stop them. Why we stopped doing what we were doing for the first half-an-hour of the second-half, I don’t know? By keeping the ball moving around their box, it would have pushed Reading back, which would have isolated their one striker. Why didn’t we continue doing that? I’m not sure. I think it might have been due to a lack of confidence from the players who were hitting the long balls forward. That’s not the way you break these teams down who sit with nine or ten men behind the ball. That’s not the answer. We’re going to keep going and continue working on it and as I said, I think we’re a team on a journey but there are still plenty of positives about the way we play. I think we have to keep believing and see where we go.
“I’ve said to Aynsley (Pears) that he has to become the goalie that we want, at the end of the day and he still has some way to go. With total respect to Middlesbrough, they’ve spent the last few seasons playing under managers, in Tony Pulis and now, Neil Warnock, who prioritise the defensive side of the game and their goalkeepers generally play behind a deep defensive line that is packed full of big lads who can head the ball out. They’re both very solid coaches, who work very hard on trying to structure their side out of possession to help keep clean sheets, yet for Aynsley to come to Blackburn Rovers and play behind a defence that’s high up the pitch, it’s a totally different thing to adapt to so quickly, and he’s got some learning to do as we move forward.
“Thomas (Kaminski) is still suffering after tweaking his groin on Saturday. He’s not ready yet, but he shouldn’t be out for a long-time as it’s not a bad injury. Joe Rothwell was in the team when I had them all in training yesterday. He was with the lads at the training ground and was scheduled to start and yet he’s turned up today with a sore back. Whether that’s off the back of the lack of movement he’s had due to his isolation or whether it’s something else, I don’t know. What I do know is that his back’s in bits at the moment, and he could hardly walk, although he looked really good and sharp in training yesterday. We had to remove him from the team as late as 5pm because it was that bad. Bradley Johnson and Amari’i Bell have both been suffering with COVID-like symptoms. We’re having a look at them and waiting for their test results to come back. We’re doing our best as a club, everybody is at it, trying to adhere to protocols, staying sanitised and clean, staying distanced and isolated when necessary, but that’s the way the world is. There’s nothing we can do about it, despite it being frustrating when you lose players off the back of it.”
The boss was then asked about Adam Armstrong and how crucial the forward was to the team after he scored his 20th and 21st goals of the calendar year of 2020.
“Adam (Armstrong) is maturing. He’s 23 now, he’s not a 18/19 anymore, like he was when I first worked with him at Coventry City. He’s going to score goals for us, wherever he plays. He can score the scruffy goals or the screamers, like he showed us last campaign, and he can score off both feet as well. He’s scored a glancing header and a half-volley tonight which shows his qualities and his range of goalscoring and I’m happy that he’s with us, as I’ve said multiple times in the past. I’ve said to the strikers in the squad after tonight that, we almost need ‘two Adam Armstrongs’, in that they have to learn how to score the scruffy goals by getting into the killer zones within the six-yard box and finish off any rebounds that might flash across goal. There’s nobody other than Adam who’s scoring those types of goals for us, so we need the front players to learn and work on their game in order for them to contribute those types of goals. Adam’s done really well in scoring those poacher-type goals as opposed to last season where a lot of them were wonder-strikes, but the fans will see that his numbers will rise because he will continue to score those types of tap-ins and rebounds as well as the wonder goals off both feet.”
