After Rovers slumped to a 2-0 away defeat against relegation-threatened Hull City, in the re-arranged fixture, Rovers chief Tony Mowbray discussed his team’s performance, which was beamed live on Sky Sports, on Wednesday night.
“We’re frustrated and disappointed with tonight’s outcome. We have to be more clinical. We got in some pretty decent areas tonight, but football is about scoring goals. You can’t come to Hull City, given the position they’re in, and not score goals, but still think you’re doing okay. It wasn’t a terrible performance, but we’ve lost the game. Everyone’s really disappointed, but I find it difficult to think that we’ve dug in and won away at Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth but lost 2-0 to Hull. That’s a really disappointing realisation for the team, the supporters and the club. We have to brush ourselves down very quickly and move on, we’ve got a tough game on Monday night against Middlesbrough who have been doing exceptionally well of late, so we need to get ourselves ready for that.
“I couldn’t understand how we weren’t awarded a penalty in the first-half. Ben Brereton Díaz’s past the last man and is running through on his right-foot. The defender comes in from the other side of him and smashes him over with his shoulder. It’s such a clear penalty and probably a red card as well. It’s laughable, really. I don’t know the officials, but they’re the ones who get paid to make the decisions and he thought it wasn’t a penalty, so we have to live with that decision. It would have been interesting to see how the game would have panned out had that decision been given. I was very disappointed with the manner of their first goal, because we were beaten by a long punt forward, up the middle, in behind us and we never recovered enough to get rid of it. Tonight, was a frustrating night for us, but we should not dwell on it. We’ve had a good chat in the dressing room and we’re going to put this behind us and look forward to Monday night at home to Middlesbrough, to see if we can put things right.
“I don’t feel a need to talk about the controversy, because I can’t change the decisions. I don’t want to stand here and moan about what could have been, because it’s done. We ultimately weren’t good enough to beat them on the night. Ultimately, you have to put the ball in their net to win games, and we didn’t do that. Even if their goals hadn’t counted, we still wouldn’t have got the three points, in effect. It’s very difficult to stand here and criticise the backline and the goalkeeper, because they’ve been amazing for the past two months. We have to put this behind us and focus on it not becoming a regular occurrence and we start talking about frustration and disappointment every week. We need to get back to being really positive, starting with the next game.
“Given the nature of the division, there was always going to be a bump in the road, and there’ll certainly be more, but we have to make sure that we come out on top in the tight games. We’re left with the frustration that we’ll be left without Ben for our next two games, which are really tough fixtures, but I hope he does well for Chile and comes back bouncing, and yet, had he scored the attempt he was hauled down for, or despatched the penalty, things could have been different. It’s part and parcel of football, but the most important thing is how we react in the next game, which we will be working on being ready for.
“Lewis Travis wasn’t feeling well at the weekend, and he’s been under the weather since. He couldn’t make it tonight, but hopefully over the past few days, he’ll be back with us, and he’ll give himself a chance to be involved on Monday. Whether he’ll return on Monday depends on how he’s feeling. When you’ve been under the weather and you’re feeling a bit down, you lose a lot of energy, so his inclusion will depend on how he’s feeling and how his body is. Sometimes, if you lose a lot of energy and your body gets drained, even though you’ve trained for a day or two, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be ready, fit and flying come kick-off. We’ll assess him over the next few days and see if he’ll be ready for Monday.”
