After Rovers’ dominant second-half display proved enough to despatch Hull City by a 2-0 scoreline at Ewood Park on Tuesday evening, Tony Mowbray offered his thoughts on a game which changed courtesy of his second-half substitutions.
“We’re pleased with a lot of aspects from tonight’s game, but there are also a lot of aspects we’re not happy with. We are, of course, happy with the victory, the three points and the clean sheet. Dan Butterworth and Reda Khadra made a huge difference when they came on off the bench. Their freshness in their legs, their athleticism, and their ability to run beyond the opposition made a huge impact. We’ll take the points and move on, but we’ve got things to grow and work on. I talked to the team pre-game about how this young squad needs to stick and grow together. We can’t dominate every game; last year we had lots of spells of possession against teams and we still didn’t manage to win as a result. We’re trying to find a balance this year of trying to pick up results without as much possession, but Khadra’s speed and trickery hasn’t been available for us until now. Butterworth has been injured for two years, really, and he needs to improve his aerobic capacity before he can start games and be seriously involved. At this moment, both of those lads are substitutes as they both need to improve their aerobic capacities, but if they keep making the impact that they did tonight, it’ll be a real positive for the team.
“The team and I are delighted with the contributions those two lads have made tonight. It’s a different kettle of fish starting a game and having to run for 90 minutes versus just coming off the bench. It’s very hard, if you don’t have the aerobic and core fitness, to keep going for the whole game, whereas if you know you’re coming on for just 30 minutes, you can empty the whole tank for that period of time. I’m pleased with the whole squad tonight, we weren’t at our most fluid or most dominant, but they’ve given teams problems already this season. They beat Preston North End 4-1 away, they held Bournemouth to a 0-0 at home, who were only in the Premier League 18 months ago and they also got a goalless draw away at Swansea City as well. Hull are capable of frustrating you and making life difficult, which they did in the first-half, but ultimately, we found a way to win. That’s what I’ve been talking to the lads about, we need to find a way to win games and we need to guard our leads, so that when we’re 2-0 up, we don’t let it slip like we did on Saturday. We have to find ways to slow the games down when we’re ahead and not to worry about letting leads slip. It’s about getting into winning positions and seeing games out.
“Set-pieces are huge in any division and it’s not coincidence that Daniel Ayala has scored two of them this season. We missed Danny last year and it’s easy for me to say, ‘we would have had x more points had Danny been fit’, given tonight was our first clean sheet of the season, but the threat he carries in an attacking sense is huge. Generally, I think the team have defended well this season, but we’ve been striving for a clean sheet all season. We have to keep Danny fit and, on the pitch, because his presence helps, as he gets on the end of their set-pieces and takes the pressure off. His presence in an attacking shape was shown today as he gave us a great platform to go on and win the game. His defensive work has gone a bit under the radar, even though we haven’t had the clean sheets to back that up. I’d say the same about the whole defence, really. They’ve been alright and I don’t really remember a game, bar arguably West Bromwich Albion, where we’ve been under the cosh all game. West Brom are arguably favourites to go back up and the intensity that they play with was very difficult to keep up with, particularly as they kept threading the ball in-behind our backline. That was a real test for us, and they were the only team we’ve played who have peppered our goal with shots. Other than that, I generally think we’ve defended pretty well, even though we’ve lost the odd goal in games. I’d have to say that, with the nature of the team we’ve got at the moment, to have only lost one, drawn three and won three, isn’t a bad start at all and I think we would have taken that had it been offered to us at the start of the campaign. We have to try and reproduce those results over the next seven games and then over the seven games after that. It’s not going to be easy, of course, but we’ve been away to Forest and won and away to Middlesbrough and Millwall and got a point in each game, against really tough, physical opposition. We have to dig in and stick together when the tough days come, and we have to try and keep grinding out results on the road and try and gain maximum points in our home games.
“We’re leaning on Ben (Brereton Díaz) at the moment in the absence of Sam Gallagher. With Tyrhys Dolan and John Buckley either side of Ben, there’s a lot of pressure on him to produce and he himself is only a young boy at 22-years of age. He has the quality to produce for this club, in my eyes and he’s shown that this season. I don’t want to say, ‘I told you so’, but it was just a matter of time for Ben to grow into a player, but we did sign him as an 18-year-old boy. He’s such a diamond of a kid, such a hard-worker and a great human being who’s not getting carried away with his international achievements. He comes into training every day with a smile on his face and works hard with the lads to try and improve. I’m really pleased for him that he’s having the level of success because the talent has always been there. Improving as a footballer is all about having a growth mindset, to be honest. That’s the same in any walk of life, never mind football, because it’s a case of wanting to improve or learnt something every day. That’s what Ben does, he comes in and wants to watch all his clips from the previous game and he’ll acknowledge where he went wrong or could have improved, and he’ll go out on the grass and work towards bettering himself. You naturally want people with that mindset to succeed and that’s why I’m so happy for him.
“Ben would have felt the criticism that came his way over the past few years, but it’s not his fault that I paid big money to bring him here. He’s just a young boy who comes in every day and gives his best for Blackburn Rovers. I’m just pleased for him that he’s getting international recognition and has scored a few goals for our club. Ben has always had a growth mindset, as I’ve said. He’s always wanted to improve since day one and he was always going to do that if he continues working hard and reviewing his games. I’m pretty sure he will get better and will one day make it into the Premier League. I hope that’ll be with this club, but if not, I’m pretty sure we will make a profit on what we bought him for initially.
“Reda’s directness is what I want from him, and that’s why he’s here, really. John Park, (Head of Recruitment), brought him to my attention when he went to watch Rangers play Brighton and Hove Albion in pre-season and he said; ‘if you want directness and a lad who can run up and down and past any full-back, inside or outside, you should go for him’. We got into contact with Brighton and their Technical Director, Dan Ashworth, who I know very well as worked with him at West Brom. He proved pretty helpful to us, both with Reda and Jan Paul van Hecke, who will also hopefully help our team. I’m delighted for Reda, but given he’s been suffering from an injury it also means, like Butterworth, he’s short of aerobic capacity. There was a glimpse tonight of his trickery, directness, power and speed and although he’s only a young boy, he’s only going to be a good addition for us.
“Sam Gallagher’s been carrying a thigh strain for the last three weeks and has had it strapped up for a while, but he’s been battling through it because we needed him to. He slipped a bit in training a few days ago and it was too big of a risk to play him. I don’t think it’s a major injury, but it’s ‘touch and go’ for Saturday at Barnsley, if not he’ll be back for Cardiff, the week after.”
