As Rovers prepare to host Southend United on Saturday, which is the reverse fixture to the opening day of the season, Tony Mowbray sat down with the clubs’ media and spoke about some injury concerns whilst also touching upon how far his players had come since the opening day defeat, back in August.
“Darragh (Lenihan) has had a scan and he’s just got a bit of bruising in his lower back and I don’t think he’ll be out for long, but whether the weekend’s game will come a bit too soon for him, is something we have to assess, but overall the injury is nothing serious. Ryan Nyambe is gradually working his way back to full fitness after suffering his hamstring injury against Blackpool and although I can rule him out for Saturday’s tie, he definitely will be back before the end of the season.
“Concerning Darragh’s injury, it was vitally important that Paul Downing could slot in and take the responsibility of the job. Paul has played a lot of football this season due to the injury Darragh suffered on the opening day and Paul’s been very reliable all season. He’s surpassed the number of games that I anticipated he would play and he’s stepped up to the mark and I’m delighted for him. In terms of other injuries, I think Ben Gladwin definitely has a chance to play a part before the end of the season. He played a practice match with the under-23s and 18s earlier on, in order to regain some fitness and he came through that unscathed. In addition to that, he’s also been training with us all week, so I presume he’s close to a return.
“The football season is a very long one where you go through different types of weather, different types of performances and different types of results, which what makes the English football season particularly demanding. Regardless of the conditions, the team that finishes in 1st place is the side that has handled themselves the best and performed the best. Our sole focus however, in the remaining 7 games, is to come out on top by grinding out results no matter what the situation is, whether that’s poor weather or a poor pitch.
“In terms of learning something from the opening day defeat at Southend, I believe that you should learn something from every game you play. The team that we had assembled was a pretty new one, one that needed to understand what League One was about and adapt to the division. In pre-season, we didn’t play any League One teams, only League Two and bar the Carlisle United game, we won the games we played in pretty comfortable circumstances. The opening day was a recognition of what the league had in store for us. Roots Hall is never a nice place to go to as it’s a tight ground and the supporters can get right on top of you and with the experienced Phil Brown as their manager, as it was at the time, it was always going to be a tough task to come away with all 3 points. I do think however, that following the 4 defeats in 6 games that we had during the first month of the season, the team has managed to come to terms with the league and the opponents that we play and they have learnt a lot of lessons from the games that we failed to pick up points in.
“The expectation for this club comes from the fan base and they expected us to do well in this division. This division is a difficult place to play your football, as many teams down the years has seen, but I have to give great credit to the players as they’ve rallied together, they’ve dug in deep and they’ve been on some amazing runs, like the 1 defeat in 28 games we achieved. I just hope that we can keep the momentum going that we’ve picked up throughout the season and end the campaign on a high.
“As I’ve said many times, the team we next face is of no interest to me as I only focus on the fact we need to compete against 11 players and the name of the team, or the colour of the shirt doesn’t change anything. By the end of the campaign, everyone end up playing the 46 games they set out to do, so rests or games in hand don’t really mean anything in the grand scheme of things as everybody ups their game against Blackburn Rovers and we have to be aware of that in order to match their intensity and come out with a win.”
The manager was asked whether the players had responded to his early season cries of making Ewood Park a fortress and whether they had overcome any anxieties that would overcome a player, playing in the arena.
“The statistics would suggest that we have found our feet at home, yet every individual game at home is very difficult as it’s rare that we run away with a game and we’re winning 4-0 at half-time. The last home game, against Bradford City was a really tough game until we cut them open and scored some goals. Saying that however, there are no easy games as every team who comes to Ewood, comes with their highest levels of intensity and performance in order to try and get something from us, but it’s up to us to stop them. All I ask for, is total focus and concentration and usually when we get that, we come out on top.”
