Following Rovers’ emphatic 5-1 home victory over Cardiff City which saw forward Ben Brereton Díaz net his first senior hattrick, Blues boss Tony Mowbray reflected on the free-scoring afternoon at Ewood Park.
“Today’s performance had great elements to it. I thought we looked really good during transition, in the midfield when we were winning the ball back and breaking away and we were good at picking out the first pass from the transition. The likes of Ben Brereton Díaz, Sam Gallagher, Tyrhys Dolan, Joe Rothwell and John Buckley can all pick out a pass. We’ve done a lot of work this week on counter-attacks and trying to pick the right pass in order to create a scoring opportunity and it’s great when all of that hard work pays off on a matchday. With total respect to Cardiff City, although they have big, huge men at the back, they’re not the most mobile and we planned on trying to play in-behind them and keep it away from their goalie who likes to play outside his box and the game-plan worked pretty well today. The team executed our plan brilliantly and I’m delighted for them all and I’m obviously delighted for Ben to get a hattrick. We need to not dwell on that too much though, as we’ve got to go to Huddersfield Town on Tuesday, so let’s put these three points in the bag, rest up and go again Tuesday.
“I’m pleased that the fans were able to witness that kind of performance, especially given the events of last season. Every support base wants to see their team do well, but last season was a strange season without them. We had all of that dominance and possession in the games, and we ended up finishing nowhere in the table. Someone showed me a statistic that said we had the second-highest average possession and the highest number of shots at goal throughout the whole of last season, yet we finished 15th, which is worthless. I’m pleased that the fans can see the team scoring and the development of the young players, including the likes of Ben. We signed him at 18, but he’s still young at 22 and although he’s not the finished article, you can see the growth in confidence and development he’s achieved in recent years. I’d have to say that Gallagher is also looking like a powerful threat, who could have got another goal or two today and Dolan is someone who I think, any football fan would love to have in their team. Buckley’s also growing into his role, Rothwell is settling into that midfield role and is now starting to show the talent that we all knew he possessed, but the team has slowly started to come together.
“They were missing a platform, last season, to score goals off and I think we’ve now got that with (Daniel) Ayala and (Darragh) Lenihan who both look solid together. Ryan Nyambe is, as we all know, unbeatable on his day, whilst Harry Pickering has done brilliantly to step up to the levels of the Championship and shown his quality, determination and grit. Thomas Kaminski is also someone I throw in there for praise as part of the defensive unit, as he made a couple crucial saves today. The team are looking okay, but they have to stay fit and robust and need to keep believing and working hard for each other and we’ll see what the season brings.
“We can’t get carried away with one result as the bigger test we have comes over the course of a full season. It’s okay saying that we scored five, three times, last season, but it’s all about thinking and concentrating on the next game. I heard the Cardiff City fans moaning for Mick (McCarthy) to ‘sort it out’ and yet Mick has done some amazing things at Cardiff. Ultimately, you have to win as a football manager, otherwise people won’t be happy. There are a lot of managers out there who would do certain things differently and I’m not complaining about that, but the passionate football fans who love their club deserve an opinion. I hope that our fans can see that we have a young team. We don’t really have any ‘star players’. I’d say our ‘star player’ is Bradley Dack, who, bar a handful of games, hasn’t been available for 18 months. The team are fighting and working really hard for each other. I think they care about each other and want to do well for each other, and I think that shows me that, whilst we’re not the best team in possession and are playing like Manchester City every week, but we carry a threat that’s capable of capitalising on defensive errors.
“As a coach, you have to get footballers to buy into the game-plan and the work you do on the training ground isn’t just about keeping them fit, it’s about how we’re going to try and play in order to create the chances to score goals against the next opponent. We’ve been doing that kind of work where we break from in and around the halfway line with the speed and directness that we’ve got and if we manage to get the first pass away, we can really hurt opponents as we showed today. Although Cardiff carry huge threats, we ran away with the game and I’m delighted for all the players. They’re a bit disappointed that they weren’t able to cap it off with a clean sheet, but that’s okay as it’s all part of the learning process. We need to now put today behind us, rest and recover and prepare for Tuesday’s game against Huddersfield Town.
“It was a brilliant day for Ben, wasn’t it? I can’t speak highly enough of the lad. He’s a brilliant guy and he’s not a stereotypical footballer who can get distracted by the noise and his own success, he’s just a young guy who loves football. I’ve been telling him, over the past week or so, to not do this extra session or that workout, because all he does is play and he never misses a session. He’s never one we look at and say, ‘do the first 10 minutes of the passing drill, then sit out and go have a bath’, he doesn’t want to do that, he wants to be involved in everything and then do extras with his finishing. He’s an amazingly robust guy and I just hope that he can stay fit all year, as it would be really interesting to see how many goals he can accrue. I do think his game is going to hit another level, because I don’t see anything stopping that from happening. The team as a whole have to keep developing and growing together. We had all three of our loan players, plus Tayo Edun on the bench today, but they will, at some stage, have to come into the fold and make an impact on this side, which I’m sure they will. Jan Paul van Hecke has also arrived, although he’s injured at the moment, but we’ve got five pretty exciting young signings who still have to integrate within this team. The problem for them at the moment is, is the fact the results have been going well and they’re finding it hard to break through into the starting-eleven. They are all working really hard, where we’ll eventually get to a point where it becomes difficult to leave someone out, which is be a great problem for a manager to have.
“Darragh (Lenihan) had a tight groin on his left-hand side, at half-time, and the physio asked whether we could withdraw Darragh, if we get a chance, so that we can protect him. We thankfully scored the fourth which allowed us to bring young Hayden Carter on in his place. Carter is a great talent, and it was great for him to get on the pitch and play against men. He’s a big strong boy, himself and everyday in training, he looks more and more the part to me. I’ve had a long chat to him and Tyler Magloire this week, about the frustrations they must feel having about not being able to get into a game, whereas their development in their most important thing. They should, in reality they should be down in League One playing 20, 30, 40 games and yet, at the time those offers came in, we weren’t able to let them go because we only had two fit centre-halves. Hopefully they understand that, and we’ll see what January brings and how things pan out until then. Scott Wharton is due back in training soon, which is very exciting for the club, moving forward.”
The interview with the boss was ended on a light-hearted note, following the significant victory as Tony Mowbray was asked whether he’d fancy joining his hattrick hero, Ben Brereton Díaz for a spot of fishing.
“I heard that Ben does a bit of fishing and I think that might be his way of winding down. I think that’s great for him, because, as I’ve said, he works extraordinarily hard in training and the fact that he can take his mind off of things with some fishing, rather than being sat in a room in front of a computer screen playing FIFA or Call of Duty, or whatever, is a good thing. It’s nice to see him partaking in something really relaxing and something he obviously enjoys. It’s also obviously good for the club that he’s not sat behind a screen until the early hours of the morning or playing golf and walking around courses, it’s good that he’s found a hobby that offers him relaxation. I’ve never been fishing, myself! I can’t imagine anything more boring, to be honest! I know there are a lot of people in this country who love fishing and if you catch the bug, I suppose they must really enjoy it, but it’s not for me!”
