Rovers entered the second international break of the season on a high, after halting a run of four straight league defeats with a crushing 4-0 away victory over Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road. A delighted Jon Dahl Tomasson cheerfully praised his side’s performance and heaped praise on both, his players and the sell-out travelling support, when speaking to RoversTV.
“The travelling support was brilliant, today, as were the team. I’m extremely thrilled with the result and the performance. We all know how extremely difficult it is to win games away from home in the Championship, but the way the players did it was extremely solid, well deserved and we played some brilliant football, too. If you look at the recent performances we’ve put in, we’ve probably been playing better in the games we didn’t win, versus today where we did win, but that’s football. The players stuck to the plan, and they deserve great credit for coping with the demand and the number of games really well and earned a well deserved victory in the process.
“We could have won more games given how we’ve been playing, but if we keep doing the right things and keep believing in the plan and the progress in this young team and you can see the development, then we should just stick to the plan. We’re doing that, but it was also great to see the fans help and support the team, too!
“I think we kept Queens Park Rangers away from our goal for most of the game. In the first-half, they had some crosses and shots from distance, but in the second-half, they only had one big chance at 4-0. I was getting angry at that point, as we really needed the clean-sheet, which we thankfully achieved thanks to some great blocks from the defence. Leopold Wahlstedt deserves great credit as well for earning his first clean-sheet at this level. We kept them away for most of the game and scored four great goals. We could have scored more if we’d done a bit better in certain situations, but the ones we did score showed some great connections between the players, so all credit should go to the lads.
“All the goals had a bit of class! It was great to see Arnór Sigurðsson score a couple of goals and Sammie (Szmodics) matching his tally from last season, as well as (Tyrhys) Dolan scoring his first of 2023-24. It was a brilliant day!
“We know that Arnór isn’t 100% fit and now he’s going away with the Icelandic national team. I spoke with their manager, who’s a former colleague of mine and he will probably only play the first game. He might play part of the second game, but I’m not too sure, as he’ll try and keep him out of that game. I think that’s a positive as the boy needs a rest, because I’ve probably used him too much, but, we like goalscorers, don’t we? I’m conscious that he’s not overused. Ideally, I’d have liked him to stay here, but it’s a great honour to represent your country. They’re also important human parts to the international side of the game, so we shouldn’t forget that.
“He’s scored some great goals. That’s very important, because we were very clinical today. The connection between the players was brilliant as were all the goals, but in each team, it’s good to have proper goalscorers. We still have a young team with an unproven consistent goalscorer at this level, so it’s nice to see Arnór scoring goals in the Championship.
“Tyrhys (Dolan) deserved a goal for his efforts and he got that. His effort out of possession was great. He worked hard for Rovers, but at the end of the day, all attackers want goals which he got. His goal was well taken and well deserved. This performance hopefully gives him a platform to build on. He always works hard, but sometimes, things don’t go your way. That’s the ups and downs of football and every player goes through that spell during a season. I’m extremely pleased he scored, today and his work-rate was outstanding.
“Sammie was very disappointed in the dressing room that he only scored one! It’s great to see his performances grow and his goal and assist numbers increase. He wants to improve, and I think he’s improved a lot since he joined last season. If you look at the game, this probably wasn’t our performance and we probably created more in the past four games that we’ve lost, but the connection across the team was a bit better, today, which is why we scored the goals.
“The three points are always important. I said to the boys, “why should we lack confidence?” because they’ve played some excellent football and deserved a lot more points than we have had in recent weeks. Football is a crazy game, sometimes you get what you deserve and sometimes you don’t; it’s that easy!”
