After Rovers suffered their second successive away loss, which this time came away at Lancashire neighbours, Blackpool, Blues boss Tony Mowbray reflected on a frustrating afternoon for his side.
“Ultimately, the final score suggests that we gave ourselves too much to do in the second-half. I honestly cannot defend that first-half performance. We were unrecognisable in that first 45 minutes. I said to them at the break against Huddersfield in the previous game that, the frustration is the fact we do all the work before the game, and the team turn up to the stadium ready. The intensity is there, the aggression is there, they’re all up for it and pumped in the dressing room and then when the game starts, that all disappears. Whether that’s young inconsistent players, not realising that actions speak louder than words and they have to roll their sleeves up and go and make sure they stay in the game? I’m not sure. To be fair to them, for most of this season, they’ve managed to do that in tough away games against the likes of Millwall, Nottingham Forest and Middlesbrough where they’ve really dug in and grinded out a result and yet we didn’t see a glimpse of that team today.
“Is it too simplistic to conclude that we would struggle without (Darragh) Lenihan and (Ryan) Nyambe on a long-term basis? Maybe it is. Football is ultimately about footballers, yet my concerns surround the depth of the squad, because if the team’s results drop away so dramatically with only one or two injuries as they have this week, it becomes a huge concern. Let’s hope we can get them both back after the international break and the results can swing back in our favour to allow the positivity to flow back in, in order to get ourselves back on track, so we need to look forward with positivity after the break. I’m very disappointed with the first-half today, but pleased with the positivity and good stuff we showed in the second period, but the damage had already been done and as I said to the team, games cannot be played like that. They have to be on it from the first whistle and for the whole 90 minutes.
“I thought we were good in the second period and were on the front-foot and were the only team asking questions. We scored a brilliant goal through Ben (Brereton Díaz), we had a second ruled out for a marginal offside, (Daniel) Ayala had a header which just skimmed the post, but it wasn’t to be today. Maybe this is now a lesson for this team, especially off the back of the first-half display, that we have to feel the pain and hopefully this proves to be a learning curve for us. These lessons are the secret of football really, the players need to take these games on the chin in order to grow. I did say that a lot of these players were only playing academy football a couple of years ago, where the focus is more about building out from the back, perfecting your pass, focussing on possession and playing through the lines and then they get thrown into a game like today where none of that happens. We have to get up against our men and win our 50/50 man-to-man duels and we just fell a bit short of that in the first-half.
“Tayo (Edun) is a good player, that’s why we signed him and the new signings such as Tayo, (Ian) Poveda, (Leighton) Clarkson, (Reda) Khadra and (Jan Paul) van Hecke all have to try and force their way into this team. Tayo didn’t do his chances any harm, today. I thought he competed extremely well and although he’s a very technical player, he’s very combative as well and yet he’s probably not the type of player who’s going to bang goals in. We played him off the left where Ben (Brereton Díaz) had been playing in order to try and create a balance which is what football is about. The balance is key, because, if I’d overcompensated in midfield and we’d lose, the criticisms would have been ‘why has he not got enough forwards on the pitch?’ That’s what football’s like, you have to win. I understand that, and as a result of us not winning today, I have to take the criticism and the questions, but what’s important is that the team learns as we go along. I’m sure they will because they’re all great kids. I felt proud of them in the second-half due to the way they managed to turn that game on its head and only looked forwards and had eyes for goal, whereas in the first-half, they looked a bit like a rabbit in headlights, which was frustrating as that came out of nowhere.
“Sam Gallagher’s suffered a muscular strain, but we don’t know the severity of it yet. We’ve been trying to protect him, because he’s been struggling for weeks a bit, but he’s been soldiering on and maybe he’s played a game too much? We were hoping to have got him through this game and given him a rest over the international break, but that wasn’t the case. We now have to wait and see what the scans show.”
