Despite netting a second-half penalty and a 90th minute free-kick at Elland Road, on Boxing Day for the Blues, Rovers’ skipper Charlie Mulgrew expressed his disappointment to the club’s media team, after Leeds United managed a spirited comeback during added time, to win the game at 3-2.
“We’ve probably got what we deserved from today’s game. We never saw their attacking waves off with 4 minutes to go and we paid the price with their goals, so we probably deserve the defeat in that respect. Everyone is devastated, because we should have done better and should have seen the game out.
“The game management is something we need to look at, however we’ve usually been alright at doing that. It’s just been over the past few games where we’ve struggled to keep it tight at the back during the final stages of the game. It’s a devastating result and the whole changing room is down. We need to watch the videos back and see where we went wrong and how we can improve in order to guarantee that it doesn’t happen again. Their crowd got behind them today, and played a huge part in driving them forwards, but we needed to concentrate and have a clear picture of what we were trying to do in order to deal with the danger. In the end their centre-back was up front, and it stretched us as a backline, because we were outnumbered at the back, which gave them the space to move in and get their goals.
“We’ve shown, over the course of the campaign, that we can compete with the teams at the top of the division, but this division, much like the game of football itself, is full of fine margins and we have to make sure that we’re on the right side from now on. We’re just over halfway through the season, we’ve played everybody in the division and have a feel of how everyone plays, and we now need to start seeing these game through and start getting the results, regardless of the performances we put in.
“It’s not as easy as saying, ‘we need to win these types of games in order to be a top team.’ We need to look back on the videos and assess what went wrong and how we can improve on the mistakes that we’re making. By re-watching the game back, we can see the moments that we could have done differently. We know they put their centre-half forwards and we wondered what to do in that moment and had we continued to play the way we’d been playing, we would have probably got a better outcome from the game.
“There are a lot of positives from our recent performances, including today and I think it’s important that we look at them as well as the negatives. We need to see how we are, when our team shape is good and when we’re pressing and working as a team, then once we’ve done that, we can look at the areas we can improve on and we have to make sure that we shut teams out more consistently from now until the end of the season. We’ll have a meeting on Thursday to clear the air and people will say their piece if they have to and we’ll make sure that we understand what everybody is saying and what the manager asks of us, in order to improve on our performances.
“We’re in a tough run of fixtures at the moment, but we’ve been competing and fighting against the very best this division has to offer. We beat Leeds at home and we have risen to these challenges against the best teams before, and there’s normally not much between us, bar maybe some belief and a slight lack of clarity in regard to what we’re doing at times. It’s always nice to score goals, but it’s even more painful getting the goals, and then losing the game in the manner which we did. Ultimately, the goals mean nothing considering the overall scoreline of the game. I’d rather have not scored any and come away with the victory, if I’m honest, but we’re going to be working hard to change it and rectify the mistakes we have made.”
