After Rovers secured their status as a Championship club for next season, following a 2-1 victory away at the City Ground, against Nottingham Forest, Blues’ boss Tony Mowbray reflected on his side’s second victory of the week with the club’s media team.
“We ultimately got the result our play deserved. When you think of (Joe) Rothwell, (Adam) Armstrong, (Bradley) Dack and (Danny) Graham, they’re always going to be a quartet that are going to threaten the opposition, and I thought Nottingham Forest felt their quality at times today. At the other end, we played a good footballing team who were always going to ask questions of our defence and yet, bar a goalkeeping error by David (Raya) on the cross, we were pretty resilient, putting our bodies on the line in order to block their efforts, but overall, we got the job done in the end, which is the most important thing.
“This is Nottingham Forest with around 25,000 people in the stands here to watch them and make a lot of noise for their team, and yet for us to come here and beat them on the back of the Derby County game midweek, is impressive from the team and I’m delighted for them. We’ve had a tough few months what with the poor run through February and March and yet you can see the solidity at the back with Darragh’s (Lenihan) inclusion. He gives us that aerial dominance as he heads balls back over the halfway line from their goal-kicks, as opposed to it dropping outside our box and us struggling to clear it. Overall, however, I am delighted, but as I’ve just said to the team in the dressing room we’ve got a lot to work on.
“We shouldn’t get carried away with ourselves after these victories, because we found ourselves under immense pressure at the end with their continuous threats at our goal today. I told them that we should be able to pick better passes when trying to play out from the back during the closing stages in order to release the pressure off our defence to get ourselves up the pitch and put them on the backfoot. At times we did that, and Dack should have scored with his chance that saw him go one-on-one with their ‘keeper, as should have Rothwell with his chance, whilst (Ben) Brereton had a half-chance where, had he taken a better first touch, he would have been in, but that’s something we’ll have to work on, without overanalysing or dwelling on it too much, until we watch the footage back on Monday during our analysis. We’ve had a good performance today, so we’ll just take the points and move on to hopefully enjoy the final few games of the season, whilst also playing a positive style of football.
“Everyone can see the quality Rothwell possesses and that’s why we initially signed him, because we know he’s capable of scoring goals. As I’ve said all year, he just has to be more disciplined defensively, in his positional play whilst also working hard for the team out of possession, then he’d probably end up playing every week whilst hopefully notching loads of goals. There’s no reason why Joe Rothwell can’t become a really fast version of Bradley Dack, if I’m honest, which will allow Joe to build a name for himself and allow everyone to talk about him, but in order to do that, he has to contribute goals, whether that means assisting them or putting them away himself. It’s no good playing in the attacking areas if you don’t contribute goals, yet I’m delighted that he’s starting to score because his work has paid off with the goals. He hasn’t moaned all year and has reacted to me having multiples goes at him about his positional play out of possession by getting his head down and showing me he’s capable of doing what I’m asking of him, which I’m delighted about. The ball’s in his court now regarding cementing a place in this team, which he’s hungry to do. I’ve had numerous conversations with him over the course of the season and he’s been telling me how he was allowed off the leash at Oxford United and I’ve told him, with all due respect to Oxford, that he’s now at a bigger club where the expectations and demands are higher and he needs to focus on doing his job for the team, before thinking of himself as an attacking outlet. In fairness to him however, all the effort he’s put in has now paid off, because he’s in the team and scoring goals, however as I’ve told him, going on a couple of mazy runs without end product, is nigh on useless for us, because although it gets the fans off their seats, it doesn’t really help the team in terms of scoring, yet in the past couple of games now, he’s managed to find the net, which I hope will continue as his confidence builds.
“We’ve got some talent at the top end of the pitch and we need to get the ball to them. Hopefully everyone can see that this team are a ‘work in progress’ and I haven’t been wanting to overly change the ‘press from the front’ style of play we’ve adopted, and yet I’ve been trying to slightly alter it as the season has progressed. You can’t change the whole structure of how a team play overnight and yet I think there’s evidence that the defence have become more composed with the ball and are capable of finding the midfield who themselves have the targets up front to aim at in Bradley, Danny and whoever’s playing on the wings. This is something that we’re going to have to work hard on during pre-season and hopefully the supporters will see a team, come August, with an identity and the recognition that they can go long into Graham as well as playing quick, slick football that will hurt teams on the break.
“I’m delighted that Danny Graham is with us and a part of our group because he’s a great guy who leads the team in the dressing room. He’s always laughing with the lads and is always helping around the young players. He’s almost like a mentor, yet he’s out on the grass doing it himself and I’m delighted that his work-rate hasn’t dropped because he works extremely hard for the team when he’s out on the grass. Sometimes, when you get someone like Danny, who’s had a fantastic career as he’s had, they can sometimes nod and tell you that they’re doing the work you’re asking of them, and yet the stats say otherwise. Danny is not like that at all. I can see him putting a shift in every game, chasing lost causes, hunting down centre-halves and goalkeepers and bringing others into play with his strength and power, which is something, as a manager, you love to see.
“He’s a brilliant finisher and for him to get 150 club career goals, is an outstanding achievement. We see him every day in training and he sort of side-foots them in with power and venom which makes them unstoppable for the ‘keepers during training. He also has the awareness to know the shot type when it’s necessary. He knows when to lift it, when to curl it and when to keep it on the ground and it’s amazing to see alongside all the work that he puts in with his running stats, so I hope that he’s enjoying his football.
“I felt, over the 8 weeks we didn’t have Darragh available and we went on our poor run, I was trying to make excuses for the team because we were very brittle defensively and there was no doubt in my mind, that without Darragh today, we would have dropped points after they got back to 2-1. He is a warrior who puts his body on the line, he wins the important headers and he gets things out of the way and away from danger. I’m delighted he’s fit and healthy, yet as I’ve said before we need to have more defenders like him in the club which will allow us to replace those who are unavailable for selection, without changing the dynamic of the team.
“We’re going to go to QPR and do our best. They’ve just beaten Swansea City 4-0, so we need to put that into perspective, because on their day, they’re a good team with some talent within their ranks. They have a tight little stadium with a hostile atmosphere, yet we’ll go and try and execute our gameplan as normal in order to give them problems, however we have to defend well and be wary of their threat going forwards, especially after their result today which will see them high on confidence. In fairness, I don’t think them seeing ‘Blackburn Rovers’ next on their fixture list will have them quaking in their boots, yet we have to go there, put pressure on them and make them feel the threat and quality we possess in the forward ranks, whilst also remaining solid at the back.”
