With Rovers ending 2018 on a sour note, following their 3-0 defeat away at Sheffield United, Tony Mowbray spoke to the club’s media team, as he offered his thoughts and feelings on an afternoon that could have easily ended in victory.
“My feelings at full-time are completely different to my feelings on the 70th minute. When we were 10 vs 11, I thought we were going to come away with a victory because I felt that we were in control of the game. We kept the ball, pushed them back, created chances, but the red card to Richie (Smallwood) threw us a bit.
“I haven’t watched it back yet, but to go 10 vs 10 was disappointing and then to lose the game in the manner we did after the decision to send Richie off, was very alarming, because we just spiralled out of control after that decision. We just need to keep working hard, but obviously, clean sheets are hard to come by, now and we’re shipping way too many goals to win matches and I’ve told the defenders in the dressing room that they have been very poor at late and have to take responsibility for the goals, as do the whole team. The nature of the goals have to be defended better and I can’t stand here and protect our defenders today, because they have to defend better and I think the adversity of the game being evened up at 10 vs 10, seemed to shake their mentality which is the frustration for us all. We threw the game away really, because the worse it should have been at 10 vs 10, was 0-0, however there was a fragility during the last 20 minutes, that we never saw for the first 70 minutes.
“I think Richie caught Elliott (Bennett) in his tackle, rather than their player. I think the referee – (Anthony Taylor) – couldn’t get his card out quick enough to even things up because he had 20,000-odd people on his back following their sending off and he probably didn’t enjoy that environment, so he probably decided to even things up in order to stop the criticism. If it was a red card because Richie showed his studs, then that’s fair enough and Richie should be more sensible and more experienced because he shouldn’t be making tackles like that in that area of the pitch, however if it wasn’t a red card, I’m not surprised the referee got another decision wrong today.
“Richie’s sending off gave them a massive lift and they went from a team on the backfoot to a team on the up who were supported by their massive crowd. Prior to that, we were in control and they barely got on the ball, so we decided to bring Bradley (Dack) on for some creativity and imagination and we also brought on Adam (Armstrong) with the intent of running in behind their defence as he would have usually done, but I think the 10 vs 10 gave them a huge lift and probably knocked the confidence of our experience backline, which is probably my biggest frustration.
“Our reaction for their first goal has to be better, following the sending off, because we didn’t win any headers. The ball’s in our box and they keep heading it back in and we needed to clear the damn thing and get on with the game, but as I say, it’s a bit of a mentality issue. Their second was an absolute joke. It was something out of a Sunday league game, however I don’t want to stand here and criticise individuals, but the backline must be miles better than that in the future, because we can’t ship 3 goals every game and expect to get a victory.
“Every team finds coming here to Bramall Lane difficult, because they’re a good side, however I thought we matched them for 70 minutes, then collapsed. It’s a tough place to come because their atmosphere is brilliant, they can impact officials, as they did today, and the crowd have the ability to suck the ball into the back of the net from the stands. For 70 minutes, we gave them a proper fight, but once again, the final stages of the game let us down. I thought the referee was guessing so many things at times and that was probably because he was complacent coming into the game. He probably thought, because he’d come down from the Premier League, that he was going to have an easy ride and a nice day out, but it wasn’t a nice day out for him, this is the Championship where proper football matches are also played.
“We’re in the middle of playing all the top teams in the division, that being 4 of the current top 7, which includes West Brom on New Year’s Day. It’s a tough period for us, one in which we have to stick together and fight through it and the fans need to keep believing in the team, because we will win a lot of matches between now and the end of the season and we’ll be in a good position come May. This festive period, as it has always been, is a tough part of the season when you look at the fixtures in detail. We should have beaten Birmingham City, and we didn’t, we should have beaten Middlesbrough, and we didn’t, however all of the teams we’ve faced over this period are some of the best in the league and that can be seen due to their high league position. We just need to stick together and keep working hard in order to come out of this tough spell positively. We know we’re a good team who can take anybody in this division on.
“I thought the lads that came into the team, who haven’t had a lot of minutes or are making their first league start for us, did very well, much like the rest of the lads did, until the last 20 minutes. They fought hard, which is what you need to do when you come here to Bramall Lane. I thought we matched their intensity and their work-rate, in addition to a lot of positive play that seemed to disappear in the latter stages of the game.
“Tomorrow morning, we will focus on the rubbish that was the last 20 minutes of today’s game. We’ll talk through it all, discuss what happened and allow the players to voice their opinions and then on Sunday we focus on West Bromwich Albion, a team who are scoring for fun. We need to go into every home game from now on, believing that we can win it. West Brom are just the next challenge for us, but it will be difficult for us to keep them quiet because they know where the back of the net is.”
