As Rovers slumped to their sixth defeat in their past 7 games, despite the narrow 1-0 defeat in the Lancashire derby against Preston North End, Tony Mowbray spoke to the club’s media regarding the efforts of his players, who dominated the game on paper, but ultimately came up short.
“All of the defeats we’ve had in this period of bad form have been tough to take and it’s a repeated theme that we have to get out of pretty quickly. The effort, drive and emotion of the game was all there for everyone to see and I thought we played on the front-foot and gave them problems whilst playing the majority of the game in their half, yet I think we lacked a bit of craft and the end product today. It’s a frustrating result today and I think not getting at least a point was harsh on us, but that’s football, they defended well and we failed to take our chances.
“I’ve said to the players in the dressing room at full-time, that I cannot question their desire, their attitude, their togetherness and all the stuff that we were so good at in the first-half of the campaign, because it’s still there, along with their hard work. Now, however, because we’re not winning games, I’m starting to question their ability to stick the ball into the net. Our passing today was woeful, everything was overhit and we were letting Preston off the hook easily. When crossing the ball, you have to put it into an area where you’re forcing the opposition to deal with it, to head it away, to scramble across in order to clear their lines or, alternatively, we end up sticking it into the back of the net, but we didn’t do either today. That’s the ultimate frustration for us today, because we’ve come up against a good side who have won their last 5 games away from home, but the game was there for us to win and we simply didn’t take our chances.
“We know that we can match any team in this league, yet today, we fell a little bit short against a good Preston side. I’ve just been telling Bradley (Dack) in the dressing room, that, without pinning any blame on him, he has been a little bit below par in recent weeks, in comparison to how he was earlier on in the campaign. The lads have to stick together and keep working hard, and my job is to keep them up and make sure that the effort and drive doesn’t desert them, whilst also picking the right team for the occasion.
“I think our lack of quality in-front of goal today was down to anxiety, due to the run we’ve been on. I have to say, however, that despite their goal which was frustratingly poor defensively, the lads at the back did a good job in keeping Preston at bay and reducing the number of shots they had. I thought it was a game that we managed well defensively and although we did change formation to a 3 at the back, I don’t think that was the reason why we didn’t score, because we created enough chances to do so.
“It never helps you when you concede inside the opening 10 minutes, but when you look at the reverse fixture, we were 2-0 down after 10 minutes, in comparison to today, when it was just 1-0. We know that they’re a team who start fast, yet I think that their goal was the only time inside the first 10 minutes, where they moved into our half. It is ultimately a huge frustration for us, and yet we’re playing against a really good football team who are high on confidence and are on a good run. After their goal, I felt as if we rose to the ascendency and pushed them back, which led to us having enough chances to have emerged as comfortable victors, yet that didn’t happen.
“It didn’t surprise me that the referee chalked off Danny Graham’s goal, because his (referee Oliver Langford) performance, particularly in the second-half, was poor and not worthy of a derby of this magnitude. He didn’t understand that the game should have flowed because of the nature of the derby. He was really weak today, almost as if he didn’t understand that tackles and competitiveness are what makes a derby. We’re in the entertainment business, not in the business of him blowing his whistle every 5 minutes because there’s some contact. A lot of what I saw today, weren’t fouls, they were just people falling over, yet he seemed to have taken them seriously. Nobody wants to see a no-contact derby and I generally worry for the whole game of football, what with the introduction of VAR in the Premier League next season. I think its chaos that the VAR is constantly getting involved and altering the referee’s decisions because I think the match official should referee the game as he sees it, then consult VAR to see whether there was, for example, a foul or an offside in the build-up to a goal. I’m getting off track and onto my pedestal about VAR, but I think it’ll be ridiculous next season, as there will probably be 20 penalties a week awarded due to the tussling from corners. The referees need to be given the space to do their jobs. I spent 20 years wrestling with and tugging the shirts of centre-forwards behind the referee’s back and I think that having VAR look at every decision will kill the game.
“Charlie (Mulgrew) has got his hamstring strapped up. We’ve had an intense programme of games and Charlie has felt the pressure of it, I would say over the few weeks, especially with me constantly going at him, saying he needs to be more dominant in the air. I think his body’s probably been tense, yet I thought he was really good today, he was dominant, he attacked the ball, played forwards and yet, probably due to the anxiety, his hamstring, to me, looks strained, but we’ll see what the scan says.
“We can’t do anything at this moment in time, other than dust ourselves down and go again on Tuesday night against Wigan Athletic. I know that, if the team turn up on Tuesday, like they did today, with the same levels of desire, passion and emotion, whilst also taking the opportunities that fall to us, we’ll be okay. We’re up against a Wigan team who are fighting for their lives. We need to be positive and believe that we can win a football match. We’ve spent a lot of time with Wigan over the past 2 years, so we know what they’re about. They’re a tough side with good players who can hurt us and yet they’ve found this league really tough, as have Rotherham United and ourselves, during this spell that we’re in.
“It’s not easy when you come into a league where the teams at the top are spending bucketloads on wages to players who have Premier League experience, and although for the first 6 months of the season, we competed very well against them, we’ve found the last 6 weeks hard. The message to the players now, is to keep working hard and keep believing that we can turn our form around, whilst the message to the supporters is to not give up on their team, because I’ll make sure that the players give their all to fight for every point available until the end of the season.”
