After witnessing his side tear Preston North End apart, after Rovers won Derby Day by a 3-0 scoreline and 75% possession, a delighted Tony Mowbray offered his thoughts on – what was quite possibly – the least atmospheric Lancashire Derby in history, to the club’s media team.
“It’s hard to argue that this was a very dominant performance. Right from the start, although I thought it was a tight first-half, we were the team in the ascendency for the most of the first-half and we looked like the team that was going to break the deadlock first. Obviously, we got the penalty right on half-time, after some lovely work from Sam (Gallagher), but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’ve gone on to score goals against teams that have gone down to ten men against us, this season. When we’ve got the likes of Sam, Adam (Armstrong) and Ben (Brereton) who can run beyond defenders into space, we can stretch teams and potentially force a challenge that results in a red card, like we did today. Of course, that decision then made the second-half a bit more comfortable for us. We were good with the ball, we didn’t really take any risks, but we scored a couple more goals along with one being ruled out for offside. I’m happy with the performance. We said in the team meeting this morning, that we were coming here to win and that it was about time that we started to push on, yet I counted around eight first-team players who are still unavailable. It seems like we have a whole team unavailable, and yet the starters and the substitutes showed great quality and got the job done.
“Sam was very good, tonight. If that toe-poke at the end hadn’t been offside, then that would have turned a good night into an amazing one for him. We know what Sam gives us and how he operates, but he’s been a bit short on confidence since coming back from injury, yet he scored a goal for us on Saturday and was fantastic tonight. He showed off his real physical presence and when you put him alongside Armstrong’s dynamic speed and shooting power, Brereton’s trickery and ability to shift the ball from foot-to-foot, it becomes a pretty potent frontline when you add Bradley Dack, Tyrhys Dolan and Harvey Elliott to them. Hopefully that frontline will help us get through the madness of these games happening every three days, with very little training, but hopefully we can hit a consistent vein of form that will help us pick up points.
“The second goal was important, which is something we talked about at half-time. When you play against these teams, any set-piece becomes a problem, especially when they have the likes of (Jayden) Stockley and things start to drop around the box and they start to push their midfielders up. We talked, during the break, about not giving silly fouls away, keeping the ball, remaining patient and moving them around and that’s what the lads did tonight. (Joe) Rothwell’s assist in for Ben to score the second, was a great threaded ball which really put the game to bed.
“It was nice for Tyrhys to get the third, because he’s had a tough couple of weeks in his personal life. He’s beaming in the dressing room after that, but I have to say that he’s an amazing kid. He’s a fantastic, enthusiastic, happy soul who’s great at the training ground every day. Even when he’s been out of the team over the last few weeks, his enthusiasm and love for football is there for everyone to see and we’re delighted that he’s part of our football club.
“Scott Wharton deserves a special mention tonight. We expect this type of performance from (Darragh) Lenihan, because he’s an outstanding defender and that’s what he’s capable of. I think Thomas (Kaminski) deserves a mention as well, because he always looks so calm and confidence and brings an air of confidence to the defence. Barry Douglas is an experienced footballer who knows what to do with the ball, he knows when to stay on the ball and when to play forward. He looks like he’s going to create goals for us, whether that’s from his crossing or from nicking in at the back-stick, like he did on Saturday at Luton Town. Ryan (Nyambe) is a powerhouse who’s been in our team for the past three or so years. He’s improving every day with certain aspects of his game, for example, his heading is so much better now than it used to be and his delivery of the ball down the line, especially today to Sam, was very good. We need to keep going.”
The gaffer also took a moment to analyse Rovers’ next opposition in Barnsley, whilst also paying homage to the absent Rovers supporters.
“I don’t want to get carried away, but I will keep driving the ambitions of the team and the club because it’s important that we believe that we can finish towards the top end of this table. I know that the likes of Bournemouth and Norwich City keep racking up the wins, but we’re looking forward to playing them in the future. I know we lost on the opening day at Bournemouth, but I thought we put on a good show. We should look forward to every match, but as I was telling the lads in the dressing room, that Barnsley could potentially be a banana skin for us. On their day, they can play like a real top team with some clever linking in midfield which is spearheaded by Alex Mowatt, who has a wonderful left-foot and they can feed their sharp, clever strikers in Cauley Woodrow and Conor Chaplin. They’re a really dangerous team and we have to be right at it on Saturday.
“It would have been nice to have the fans here after this result, because we haven’t had the best of times here in recent years. Last year was a prime example of that, as we managed to lose the game, despite being 2-0 up at half-time. It would have been nice for the fans to celebrate here. Hopefully, they enjoyed it at home and hopefully, in the not too distant future, they can come back to Ewood Park and they can go back to following us on the road and I hope that, by then, I’ll have selection issues because everybody’s fit and we’re winning lots of games and the fans are enjoying watching Blackburn Rovers win pretty regularly again, in the future.”
