After Rovers slipped to their second successive defeat, which came in the 100th league Lancashire Derby courtesy of a 2-1 home loss to Preston North End, Blues boss Tony Mowbray reflected on a ‘abject’ performance from his side.
“Tonight, has been hugely frustrating and disappointing. I’m at a loss as to how I can explain the first-half performance, really. The dressing room, before kick-off was well aware of what was at stake today, it’s a derby game and they were all driving each other on and looked at it and ready and yet we turned out a performance like that. I just think that we didn’t play forwards enough. We talked about how we had to play, and what our strengths are. We kept taking a lot of short goal-kicks, but, as I keep saying to them, in this moment, the best way forward for us is to get the ball forward and push into the opposition half, like how we finished the game. I could identify with the team during the last half-an-hour and I could see what we were all about. We were on the front-foot, we were asking questions of them, we were putting the ball in the box and winning second balls and we had some general intent. Yet, where was that intent for the first 45 minutes? I’m not sure.
“If you go 1-0 down in most matches, you’re probably not going to win it, let alone 2-0. I thought we had a go in the second-half and I felt confident that we were going to get the second goal, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t to be. We’re frustrated and disappointed, but we’re not the only inconsistent team in this league. It’s not nice playing a derby game in a totally empty stadium with my voice echoing around. We’d prefer to have a full, bouncing stadium, where the fans are driving the team on, as the players would feel the expectation from the supporters.
“If you talk to any manager, they’ll talk to you about inconsistencies. Liverpool, who were the best team in the world, a year or so ago, went six games without a win. Inconsistency is how football is at this moment in time. What do you want me to say regarding inconsistencies? We can either be really good or play like we did in the first-half. We’ve had spells like that this season, but we don’t see them coming or know when they’re coming, and that’s why I made changes at half-time. The first-half was unacceptable. We didn’t get the job done in the end, so we have to make it right in the next one.
“We played against eight or nine men behind the ball. Preston, when they go ahead, aren’t bad. They’re a transition team who rely on the threat of the counter-attack and they can easily make it two or three goals. Today, after going ahead, they put a lot of men behind the ball and seemed to take ages over every set-piece, but they manage the game well, I think. It was difficult to get some momentum going in the second-half. I thought the second period was a better performance and one which was more like us. We were trying to get back into the game which meant we had to leave ourselves open at the back. If we don’t make attacking changes, you get questioned why we’re not doing so. We have enough quality on the bench to try and affect the game and we made changes in order to give us the best chance of coming away from tonight with a result.”
