Although Rovers managed to stop their losing streak being extended to six, they were only able to muster a draw against relegation-threatened Coventry City, as the visitors smuggled a 1-1 draw back to the Midlands. With Rovers still looking for their first league win since January, Tony Mowbray reflected on the rather underwhelming contest.
“Today was hugely frustrating for us. I think we started really poorly, to be honest, or maybe it was a case of them starting really sharply and on the front-foot? Is it to be expected? Is the belief or confidence down after our recent string of results? Maybe it is, and yet, they were so up for it, before the game and were ready for the confrontation. We didn’t start as sharp as Coventry City, but we worked our way into the tie and scored a good goal. A second goal would have been what we needed and yet we didn’t really pepper their goal. We generally looked like a threat in the first-half and yet it’s hard to break down a back-five. A lot of teams, this year, have been playing a back-five against us, probably down to coming here in fear of us, after the high number of goals we scored during the early weeks of the season. I thought Coventry came today, with a bit of fear. They left out (Gustavo) Hamer and (Callum) O’Hare, who are arguably two of their most influential and technical players in favour of having more defensive minded players in the hope of making it difficult for us to get through them. Ultimately, we’ve got a point from today and we move on. We would have liked to have won, but there are no easy games in this league, as we’ve found with every game that we’ve lost, we’ve been right in all of those games, they’ve been tight affairs as nobody has beaten us comfortably and they’ve all usually had a one-goal margin to them. We just have to keep rolling and see if we can turn some of the tight games into victories.
“I thought we grew into the game in the first-half. They started well, but we began to dominate and pushed them back, which saw their back-three evolve into a five and yet, we didn’t manage to capitalise on that dominance, after taking the lead, to grab a second. (Barry) Douglas’s free-kick came close, but came back off the post, but it wasn’t a day where we were really peppering teams like we did in the early days of the season, it was a difficult game, particularly after they went down to 10-men, against a team that are hard to break down because of their packed backline. Given the types of players we have, we need to try and get in-behind teams with speed by sliding balls in-behind, because ultimately, without the height of 6’4” (Sam) Gallagher, we can’t go over them. It was a frustrating day for us, but it gets our points tally moving along and we have to keep going.
“Their goal came simply from a long punt up the pitch from their goalie (Ben Wilson). We lost the header on the edge of the box and they headed it out wide, which allowed them to cross it in. We then lost the header at the back of the six-yard box and their lad (Matty James), hooked it in. It was a case of not doing the basics. We failed to make first contact with two 50-yards balls which is something that I preach about a lot. You have to make first contact on crosses, set-pieces and long balls at any means necessary, even if that includes stretching every sinew. But we failed at that and that’s what’s cost us the clean sheet. It’s frustrating looking back, because they didn’t really threaten us after scoring, they had some breakaways, but we dealt with them well. I’d have to say that (Ryan) Nyambe was immense today. He obviously did brilliantly for our goal, but his defensive display, including his one-vs-one play was very good. It’s a disappointed dressing room which we’ll have to pick up again on Tuesday when we go to Reading.
“The red card gave them the single-minded goal of getting out of here with a point. It came around the 80th minute mark, I think, and it wasn’t as if we had lots of time to make our man advantage count. By that time, we had a lot of attacking players on the pitch, so their minds were made up. We had the likes of (Bradley) Dack, (Tyrhys) Dolan, (Adam) Armstrong, (Ben) Brereton and (Harvey) Elliott all on the pitch, at that point and we had a lot of players capable of scoring for us, yet when Coventry sit as deep as they did, it becomes difficult for us to find a way through, unless it was via a long-range shot, a deflected shot or a cutback, like the one we scored. We have to score certain types of goals and I think as teams have caught onto how we score, they generally deny us by playing deep back-fives, which denied Adam the space and when Gallagher is unavailable, as he was today, it makes it harder for us to score via a ball into the box, because we don’t have anyone to bring it down.
“Ben (Brereton) had a good game today and got himself his second in as many games. Injuries knock every player back and that’s what has happened to Ben over the past few weeks. (Lewis) Travis and Dack are the prime examples of that. You can’t be out for as long as they were out and expect everything to be as you left it. Ben took his goal brilliantly and he worked hard, but there are still a lot of growth areas for him as he’s still a young boy.
“I do think we’re capable of players other than Armstrong pitching in with goals. I thought Elliott was good again today. His combinations with Nyambe’s speed and power just before our goal was good and a lot of times Elliott, was stepping inside onto his left-foot and playing Ryan in-behind, which allowed Ryan to cut the ball back and showcase a move that we work on a lot. It was a good goal, but we’re ultimately left frustrated that we didn’t grab all three points.”
