After Rovers ended their winless run of seven games with a 2-0 away win over Millwall at The Den, a relieved Tony Mowbray heaped praise onto his side following their fantastic display down in London.
“Millwall at The Den is always a difficult side to play against because they ask physical questions of you. We didn’t gamble, per se, but we picked a pretty technical team with a technical midfield, with the thinking that we needed to keep the ball off them rather than go to war with them. Ultimately, that decision paid off. I thought (John) Buckley played exceptionally well, (Tom) Trybull also showed class today. We played (Bradley) Dack in midfield as a number eight and we pushed him up quite high, but overall, the balance of the team looked alright. Tyrhys (Dolan) was like a ‘whirlwind’ out there for us, closing their back-three down at every possible moment. I thought the balance of the team was good, they defended really well and we didn’t ask the full-backs to push up as high, today because we played the attackers wider and that decision seemed to work for the team.
“We made the decision regarding the team selection after Reading and over the past few days, really. We could have picked (Lewis) Travis and (Corry) Evans today, and yet, Evans had played three games in a week and Travis is still looking a bit leggy to me after coming back from his injury and I didn’t want to go into a game where we were going to look a yard shorter than Millwall and I understand that we gambled today. I could have easily been stood here being questioned as to why I played the likes of Buckley and Dack in midfield against a powerful Millwall side and yet, because we’re trying to evolve into a possession-based team, trying to play through teams’ lines and ask questions of teams positionally, I feel like – although I don’t want to feel – I want us to do it the way we want to do it. We want to play like a football team, but at times, you have to tinker with things, like we did today. We kept our full-backs in and tried to stop transition with them being narrower, versus our wingers who played wider, for example. I know that our wingers aren’t natural wingers, that’s been my dilemma because we haven’t got real wingers, so (Sam) Gallagher and (Ben) Brereton were there and did a good job because they held their position and threatened in-behind and the goal. We played the two number eights in Buckley and Dack higher up the pitch, which left Trybull to try and dominate the game which worked to an extent and ultimately, we’re pleased with the performance and result.
“The goals came at good times, but also with a bit of fortune. Dack’s goal looked to me, even after I’ve watched it back, as if it took a nick of their defender because their goalie (Bartosz Białkowski) was diving to his left and the ball went down the middle of the goal. But still, the way he manufactured that yard of space around the edge of the box was fantastic and it was a great goal for him. He’s upset in the dressing room that he didn’t grab a second just before he came off. It was a penalty, I’ve watched it back and Ryan Woods clips Dack’s heels as he was about to put it into the empty net, which caused him to miss. Dacky was great in that position, playing in an ‘eight’ around the box. He worked really hard, as I’ve told him he has to in order to build his fitness back up and get it to where it needs to be. I like Dack in midfield, because makes him work, run back, tackle and get wrapped up in the game and that makes it personal for him which causes his talent to shine through. I could go through them all individually, because I thought they all did well. The pleasing thing for me is that, nobody’s ‘throwing in the towel’ after our recent results. Nobody’s looking down, upset or disinterested, everybody is fighting and working hard, and I think that’s important for the supporters, for the team and the club. We’re all disappointed that we lost too many games throughout February and we’ve drifted out of the playoff picture, we understand that, but I do believe that, if we have a consistency with the players who are returning from injury and we start to build some proper competition in the squad, this team will be a good team in this league and I think we’ll be able to compete at the top end of it. (Joe) Rankin-Costello came back today, which allowed (Ryan) Nyambe to have a bit of a rest, (Bradley) Johnson also returned and got some game time and we’re starting to filter a few bodies back in which will only help us.
“I thought we could have scored more goals today, even without Adam (Armstrong). The clean sheet was massive. To go seven games without one was frustrating and yet, on the balance of play, we’ve been pretty good defensively over the course of those games, but we lost three of those goals by a one-goal margin where we were let down by individual errors. Generally, however, the defending has been pretty good, and it was epitomised by Taylor (Harwood-Bellis) today when he celebrated like he scored a goal after blocking an effort from Matt Smith. I thought Darragh (Lenihan) was a true leader today, and Barry’s (Douglas) composure and leadership were also crucial, whilst Rankin-Costello also got himself an assist from Dack’s goal. I feel as if I’m going through the team, one-by-one, but Thomas (Kaminski) did what he does. He’s a class act and a top goalie. We have to get to where we want to go pretty quickly, because I think the Premier League will have eyes on Thomas, so we need to keep growing the club and the team and start to threaten the top end of the division.
“Darragh and Taylor were brilliant today, especially against the two forwards Millwall finished the game with. Matt Smith is a monster of a man, he’s not just big, but his bulk is hard to defend against. He can move you and shift you out of the way and I thought we competed really well against him. (Jón Daði) Böðvarsson is a wirier character that we could come over the top at times. We talked to the centre-backs about playing loose and not fighting their centre-forwards, in order to be cleverer against them by going over the top. I thought we did really well, defensively. I don’t really remember them peppering our goal, bar the couple of minutes they had after making it 2-0, but we saw it off pretty comfortably and I thought we could have had a third on the break.
“We have a really frustrated dressing room, I’d have to say. We’ve got some lads in there, who have ambitions of playing in the Premier League, as I keep drilling, yet we’ve obviously fallen away pretty badly in the last month. We all feel hurt and are disappointed, but the good thing is that they’re all still fighting, still care and want to play for the badge. That knowledge makes it all worth it for me. We need to be honest in saying we’ve had a bad month and nobody’s walking around the Training Centre, happy, laughing and bouncing, everybody’s a bit down, but when it comes to matchday, you have to put your game-face on and go to war, if that’s what you have to do or find the class and quality to play the football that we want to play and the most pleasing aspect is that they’ve managed to do that without getting too disappointed, down and deflated which can be a real problem to the confidence of a football team.”
