Rovers won away from home for the first-time since August, after beating Middlesbrough, 2-1 at the Riverside Stadium. Jon Dahl Tomasson expressed his delight to RoversTV after his young side had shown two sides of their game, each appearing either side of half-time.
“I think today’s performance was brilliant. Getting three points away at a big club like Middlesbrough is not easy. Our play on the ball was extremely good in the first-half, we created a lot of chances and scored two very good goals. Sam Gallagher’s goals were great, one was a tap-in, the other was a fantastic strike. Every time we moved forward it seemed like we were going to create chances, but the Middlesbrough ‘keeper (Zack Steffen) did well, saving two brilliant chances that we created. It could have easily been 4-0, but instead we conceded a goal just before half-time, which is never a good time to concede. We were a bit passive during the last five minutes of the first-half, but in the second, we showed a totally different character. We showed that we were mature for a very young team. We defended the box, their crosses and the defenders protected the goals with their lives and Thomas (Kaminski) has made some amazing saves. Our travelling fans also helped to team to victory, which was great. It was a big performance and a deserved win.
“We were playing at a very high level in the first-half. We controlled the space, made great rotations, played quick one-two touch football, we varied in our passing from short to long and linked it all together. We made runs in-behind and we showed a combination of everything we’ve worked on and that we want to see, so great credit to the players. I think we deserved a few more goals, but we have to compliment their goalkeeper for making some tremendous saves.
“Adam (Wharton) is a young boy, who will have a big future. He’s extremely good on the ball, but needs to improve the defensive side to his game, but he is learning every day. He wants to learn, but he is a tremendous player on the ball, so when you bring technical footballers together that’s the result you get. It’s nice to see Sam score. Before he got those opportunities, he made some brilliant runs off the shoulder of the defenders, that we didn’t always see, and we should have put the ball in-behind them for him. It’s great to see him constantly threatening them in-behind and it was a good combination of people who wanted the ball to feet and those who ran in-behind, which gave everyone a passing option, on the ball.
“What a strike Sam’s second was! Maybe it was the Goal of the Season? A young team dealing with the pressures of playing away from home, and the pressure of Middlesbrough in the second-half, we mustn’t forget that defending is also part of the game. The passion and the manner of how the team dug in and defended in the second-half especially, to get the three points, deserves great respect and compliments. Thomas’s save was also amazing. It was high-class. He is an excellent goalkeeper.
“It’s very nice that we can reward the travelling fans with three points. I said after the defeat at Wigan Athletic in midweek that I didn’t think we deserved to lose the game, but we also didn’t deserve to win it, it should have been a draw, in my opinion. I was actually disappointed and frustrated after the game after 3,000 of them travelled. We always want to reward them when they travel with us and I know we can’t always do that when we’re still a young project under construction, but it’s still nice to reward them. We didn’t play well just down the road, at Wigan, but today we had an excellent game that showed what football was about. The first period was excellent as we were brilliant on the ball and created chances and the second-half showed our defensive qualities as we defended as men with desire and passion.
“I think the inconsistencies will remain with this group for a long time, because they’re young and we don’t have the time to train that much, but we should always go onto the pitch looking to improve. If you look at our first-half, on the ball the boys are improving, despite not having that much time to train. It’s not perfect, but they’re improving. It takes small steps.”
