After Rovers were dumped out of the Emirates FA Cup in the Third Round for the fifth successive year, this time courtesy of a Thelo Aasgaard winner in added time for Wigan Athletic who won 3-2, Tony Mowbray reflected on the disappointing game which Rovers threw away, despite being on top for most of the tie.
“It’s frustrating to have come out of that game on the wrong side, because we don’t like losing football matches. We’re left with an empty feeling in our stomachs, after that defeat and yet, it’s difficult to legislate how we lost that today. I genuinely couldn’t see them threatening in the first-half. They were finding it difficult to get through us and we were breaking away and we had some really good chances, (John) Buckley had a great chance, Ben (Brereton Díaz) scored a goal that was ruled out for offside but was tight. We looked like we were going to score, today and we did through Reda’s (Khadra) great strike. I was struggling from the moment we went ahead, to see how Wigan Athletic were going to break us down, if I’m honest.
“We lost some disappointing goals, today, but nobody needs to tell Aynsley (Pears) that. He knows his errors and he’s finding it tough in that dressing room, at the moment, but we have to support him. Only a month or so ago, he played two-and-a-half games and kept two-and-a-half clean sheets, when Thomas (Kaminski) got injured. I think it’s important that the number two goalie gets game time, when he can, because you never know in today’s COVID world, when Thomas might tell us he needs to isolate. It was important for us to give Aynsley game time, but it obviously didn’t go well for him today. He’s going to have to build himself back up, which we’ll help and support him through, but we have to move on very quickly to next weekend’s game against Cardiff City.
“Aynsley was a massive plus for us, to be honest. He made some good saves in the games that he played in. He did very well and helped us keep clean sheets during his time on the pitch and yet, today’s been a difficult day for him. That’s how it goes when you don’t play for long spells, because you have to come in and try and make sure you’re not the guy that costs your team the game, and yet Aynsley came in and made some elementary errors that cost us. Life is tough when you’re a goalkeeper, but that’s done now. We can put those mistakes behind us and move on, because if Aynsley’s called upon in the future, I’m sure he’ll do exceptionally well. Today will be hurting him, but he’ll get back to training and continue working hard to improve, as he does every day.
“Sam (Gallagher) is going for a scan, but we have to wait and see. It’s not nice when you see him sprinting down the line and then pulling up as suddenly as he did. I think the injury’s more his foot, rather than a hamstring, which is a positive, unless it’s a damaged bone, then it won’t be as positive. It’s a frustrating one for him. Darragh (Lenihan) was struggling with his knee at half-time and I didn’t think it was right to compound the pain with an injury that would see him be out of action for a long time, so that’s why I brought him off. Hopefully, Darragh will be fine for next Saturday, but the two regular wing-backs will probably be unavailable. Ryan (Nyambe) was feeling his hamstring in training and Harry (Pickering) is out for a few weeks, as we know. We’ve made five changes today from the side that’s been playing regularly over the past few weeks and on top of that, we’ve had injuries in this game. Although I still felt that we controlled the game for long spells, those factors have contributed in us losing today.
“I am quite fearful of players picking up mid-game injuries, but I genuinely don’t think we’ve got a big enough squad, to genuinely leave experienced players out. We could have played a team of kids today and lost quite heavily and that’s not particularly good for them, really. I thought we’d come here and win, with the team that we put out and yet, it’s hard to legislate for the goals we lost. We’ve come here today off the back of six clean sheets and we’ve only conceded one goal in seven games. It’s very difficult to think, pre-match, that we were going to come here and concede three goals, yet, when you look at the nature of those goals, they were all easily preventable.
“I think it’s good to focus on one competition and that’s now the league. Some teams who are at the top of our league, may potentially go deep into the cup and have a few more games than us. Some may argue that that may build their confidence and belief up, but you could also argue that their fixture congestion, fatigue and injuries could catch up with them and favour us. We just have to keep going and remain as positive as possible every week. We should try and keep our players as fit as we can. At the moment, that is a struggle, but we should look forward to going to Cardiff City and focus on that game. We need to put today behind us, keep going and hopefully Darragh, Sam and Ryan will be available for next week’s game.”
