After Rovers secured back-to-back wins for the first time since late November/early December, courtesy of a late 1-0 victory over Luton Town, Tony Mowbray expressed his satisfaction over his side coming out of the game with three points, despite the game being less than an exciting watch. The gaffer also offered an insight into how he expects the final few days of the mid-season transfer window to play out.
“I have to give credit to Luton Town. I feel as if they no longer feel like the underdogs in this league, a team that have to scrap their way to get as many points as they need to stay up. I feel as if they’re better than that. They’ve got good athleticism in midfield, strength at the top and power at the back, so they make games tough for any opposition they face. An example of that is when they went away to Bournemouth and won 1-0 earlier in the season. They’re a well-organised, well-coached team and yet things did get scrappy at times for us today. We had to make some changes in the second-half to give us more urgency and energy, and eventually we go the job done. These types of games are really tough for anybody. I watched Middlesbrough in midweek who got beat 3-0 by Rotherham United, and yet we beat Middlesbrough last week and Rotherham a few weeks ago. Sometimes the name of the football club means nothing, because the highly motivated teams, such as the Rotherhams and the Lutons of this league, who are not long out of League One and sometimes have to scrap and fight for points can cause problems for any team in the league.
“A lot of credit for the goal goes to the subs. (Lewis) Holtby hit the long ball, (Sam) Gallagher knocked the header down for Adam (Armstrong) to do what he does. It’s good to win the game and put the result in the record books, but the clean sheet is massive. It’s massive for the goalie and for the back four in-front of him. Although I’m delighted with the outcome, I’m not delighted with the performance because we still have to be better. I’d like to be stood here having won 4-0 knowing that Adam smashed his early chance in, rather than getting caught. We were really hot during the opening 20 minutes and yet, if you don’t score when you’re on top like that, you leave yourself vulnerable to be punished, because they’re always going to get opportunities or break away. The offside goal, right at the end is the perfect example of that. If I was here having drawn 1-1, I would have been really frustrated and the tone of this interview would be a rather negative one, but that wasn’t the case. We got the three points we required, so we just have to put them in the bag and move onto the next game.
“This team is always capable of scoring a goal and yet, Adam has missed some key chances over the past few weeks. He could have had another 10 goals, in my opinion, over the past few weeks and yet I can’t complain because he’s already got 17 goals this season and he’s still got another 20 games to try and add another 10 or so goals that will take him way over 20 for the season. Let’s hope he keeps getting himself into the right positions so that he can keep his tally ticking along and hopefully every time he only grabs one in a game, it can be the winner that adds another three points onto our total.
“Thomas (Kaminski) is a top goalie. I’ve been in this game for over 40 years and he’s a proper goalie. He’s a wonderful personality, he’s calming on the rest of the group, he can get angry and authoritative and as all ‘keepers do when someone’s not doing their job in-front of him. His distribution is great and he’s just calm and steady. He catches the ones he should catch and punches the ones he should punch. He makes the saves he should make, and we’re delighted with Thomas. I feel, when talking to him, that he’s happy that he’s made this move over to England, yet as a club, we have to keep progressing in order to keep hold of players like Thomas Kaminski, because teams who have decent scouting departments will be watching and they’ll see his quality.
“People got down and disappointed through December, and yet if you look all over the country, teams are prone to dropping points. Liverpool went seven games without a win. How’s that possible? Because when you pick up too many injuries in a certain position that is really prevalent to what you’re trying to do, things become difficult. On top of that, COVID is around and all of that could knock confidence ahead of games against the top teams and that just creates a bad run of form. Saying that, it’s alright for teams to go on a bad run, because the important aspect of it is whether you can get out of it, or whether it keeps rolling on. Every team in this league can go two, three, four games without a win and yet at this moment, we’re finding a way to win some tight matches.”
The gaffer then took a few moments, upon being questioned regarding the transfer market, to highlight how difficult the transfer windows and the negotiation techniques are for managers.
“There are no guarantees that any deal gets done, but things have been pretty hectic. The closer it gets to the deadline; the more likely deals are. People try to hold their nerve and yet the prices are a bit too much, despite the fact you want the deal to go through. It becomes an exchange of: “We haven’t got that, we can do this. What do you think?” and then they reject and you either go elsewhere or continue negotiating. That’s how it works really, but we’re working really hard. I’ve said this in the past, but unless you’ve got copious amounts of money where you can just pay the asking price, but that’s never the case, especially in this division, so it turns into ‘back and forth’ negotiations. We’re currently in talks with a few teams, let’s see if they come off. If they do, then great! If not, then we’ll continue with what we’ve got.”
