With Rovers earning their first draw of the season, which came in a goalless encounter with Cardiff City at a roasting Ewood Park, over the bank holiday weekend, Blues boss Tony Mowbray saw many encouraging signs from his side, despite failing to find the back of the net.
“We could have come away from today’s game with all three points. We had a lot of stuff around their box in the first-half, but it’s hard to break Cardiff City down because you don’t know the type of goal, you’re going to score against them when they’ve got (Aden) Flint and (Sean) Morrison at the back heading everything out. The team selection was a difficult one for me today, because I know how powerful they are in the centre of defence, so we tried to play Sam (Gallagher) wide in order to attack their left-back with aerial bombardment which led to a few half-chances for (Bradley) Dack and (Danny) Graham.
“It was never going to be a game with a lot of chances because of how well Cardiff and Neil’s (Warnock) teams in general are defensively. They always work extremely hard and use their physical presence to take advantage both defensively and attackingly at set-pieces and long throws. Saying that, it ultimately would have been a great game to have won 1-0, had Derrick’s (Williams) effort gone in off the post, rather than back out, but we’ll take the point, considering we might have potentially lost that game last season, and move onto Tuesday’s cup game. It was a tough day for both sides, but for us, it’s good that we can roll our sleeves up and go into battle against the likes of Cardiff, who were in the Premier League last season. Alongside that, we also have the quality within the squad to move the ball around and be a threat to any opposition, but that wasn’t appropriate today due to the quality and speed within their squad, but thankfully we came out of it with a clean sheet and a satisfactory point.
“I suppose we could do with a bit more care in the final third, yet, I don’t want to stand here and criticise the team because they’ve been really encouraging. There are things that we have to keep working on and developing. We’ve had enough half-chances in the games to be encouraged, but we need to keep working hard in training to offer the players guidance on how to beat the defenders in this division who are better than those we played against in League One. Saying that, the team scored goals last season, so there’s no reason that, without a bit of development and hard work, we won’t do the same again this year. The base of getting the three clean sheets on the bounce is very positive as it gives us a chance to go on and win the game, so we just need to make sure we keep that going, as we head into our upcoming games before the international break.
“We would like to score more goals. Two 1-0s and a 0-0 don’t seem exciting, but I think today’s game for the supporters allowed them to see their team compete against a team, who are renowned under Neil as being strong and powerful, which I think we did today. As I said, everyone rolled their sleeves up and stuck together as we battled away, and yet, as I’ve mentioned we lacked that cutting edge in the final third which is something we’ll hopefully be able to improve upon as the weeks and games go by.
“The clean sheets are all-important because they always give you a chance to win the game. I mentioned the relationship between Derrick (Williams) and Darragh (Lenihan) last week and it’s very pleasing for me to know that they can play and get the job done against different types of opposition, whether that being fast, alert strikers or against big, tall, powerful centre-forwards as we did today. They both have wonderful attributes and are winners by nature, which I’m pleased about, of course, but we as a team now, need to not rest on our laurels and keep working on ourselves defensively, including the full-backs, (Lewis) Travis and (Bradley) Johnson, in order to try and keep the back door locked and get to a consistent blend of play where we’re both keeping clean sheets and scoring goals.
“I wouldn’t have turned my nose up at seven points from three games, after the two defeats we had in the opening couple of games, but we need to try and go on a run where we win games against whoever we play. Our next league game, after the cup game against Sheffield United in the week, is against West Bromwich Albion. The last time we went there, it ended up being a war where Richie Smallwood finished the game in goal because we went down to 10 men. We just need to take the games as they come, whilst also doing our best to improve and prepare for the upcoming fixtures before the international break. The big game for me is away at West Brom, but of course, Sheffield United won’t lie down for us in the cup. They did extremely well last season and have started their Premier League campaign well. This is an opportunity for some of our squad players to play and I’m sure Chris Wilder will rotate his squad as well. The important thing for us is to keep the league at the forefront of our minds, whatever happens on Tuesday night.”
