After Rovers returned from the first international break of the season with an encouraging 2-0 win over a resolute Millwall side, Blues boss Tony Mowbray reflected on his team’s victorious performance and their fourth clean sheet in their last five league games.
“Any win is a good win, no matter how difficult it turned out to be. That’s only Millwall’s second defeat in seven games, they’ve been hard to beat and have managed to get draws at the Hawthorns and the Riverside, so they’re very resolute and hard to beat and yet, whilst they did make life difficult for us at times today, I felt as if we could have scored four or five goals had a few of our one-on-ones gone in. The team is coming together slowly, and yet I didn’t particularly enjoy the game today, because, whilst we’d done a lot of work on the three-at-the-back system we used today, over the break, we never really got into the same rhythm today as we did during our training sessions, which is credit to Millwall who are an honest, hard-working team, set up to make life difficult for us, which they did at times. The most important thing from today, however, are the three points. We now need to keep focussed and keep on improving and developing as we head into our next couple of games.
“I think the best place to learn a new system is on the pitch, in a game. Although we’ve looked spectacular in training against the youngsters and the surplus players, the best test for any team is against opposition on a matchday who are prepared, organised and will do everything to stop you from asserting your style of play. With the added pressure of the opposition, your players adapt to different scenarios and problems that only occur on a matchday, which in-turn, helps them to learn and adapt to the system better. We didn’t concede today, which is a massive boost, but overall, we’ll get better as a unit, as the season progresses, and we come up against different opponents. We’re not going to play three-at-the-back every week, but sometimes, such versatility is needed against certain opposition, like it was today. Some weeks we might sit really deep and give (Adam) Armstrong, (Sam) Gallagher and (Joe) Rothwell a run-out whilst giving (Bradley) Dack a rest, in order to give us pace from a deep position, whereas, in other games, we will need the aerial presence and power of (Danny) Graham as we push teams back in an attempt to dominate possession. I’m trying to utilise the squad in order to make this club bigger and stronger, whilst making the players believe that we should rightfully be competing towards the top end of the table.
“Being versatile with your systems allows you to change games when you need something different. If you need some width, especially like in games like today where we evolved into a 3-4-3 during the second-half in order to eliminate their full-backs having possession of the ball, but there are a lot of ways to play with a three-at-the-back system. For example, when I first arrived two-and-a-half years ago, we played a three-at-the-back in most games, almost in a 5-4-1 formation with (Sam) Gallagher as a wide striker and that got us results. Another factor in the system change was the form of (Darragh) Lenihan and (Derrick) Williams who deserved to keep going after their run of clean sheets and I thought that with Tosin (Adarabioyo) fit, I could look at the system and Tosin himself, in action, after the positive training we’d had. Tosin is amazing at passing out from the back with his Premier League quality passes, and yet, he has to get used to our team and the intensity that we play at. We’re not Manchester City who can ping it around, we have to play with an intensity on the front-foot and move higher up the pitch in order to make things work, which is something he’ll adapt to as he plays more games.
“Derrick’s strike was amazing! I was talking to the players during the week about the types of goals that we’d score against Millwall, as I thought we’d have a lot of the ball, which would allow us to create chances. We talked about getting in-behind them and cutting it back for an easy finish, a bit like the second goal that Bradley (Dack) scored, and yet, although only (Stewart) Downing has scored from outside the box for us, Derrick’s strike was magnificent. Saying that, scoring from outside the box is something that we need to work on and develop. The confidence with which he’s been playing recently was shown in that goal, and yet the system with three centre-halves, allows him to get that high up the field, as he knows that there’s at least two people covering him, if things were to breakdown. We talked about the centre-halves getting forward, due to them only playing with one striker, not in a Sheffield United-manner with an overlap, but with some extra support towards the midfield which would allow the midfielders to get into the box, as there’s no need to have three defenders stood marking one striker. I’m pleased for Derrick, for his goal and overall performance, but as a team, we have to start scoring from all over the pitch in order to have enough goals to be a threat to the division. It’s been tough to score lots and lots of goals with the start that we’ve had, but I think the signs are there that the goals will come and yet, the clean sheets at the other end are what the foundations are built on.
“The clincher, in the second goal came pretty late for us, and yet I thought that we could have ended up with more than the two we finished with. Arma (Adam Armstrong), chested one down and was one-on-one with the goalie, and I would have expected that he would have put that away, because he’s a great finisher off either foot, yet it bounced back out off their ‘keeper. Another chance we missed came through Joe Rothwell who has been working on his finishing all week after training, because I’m telling him that in order to get into the team, he has to add goals to his game and today he had the perfect chance to show me what he was capable of, but it wasn’t to be. I like Joe and I think he’s a fabulous footballer. I’m always barking at him from the touchline, telling him to do his job out of possession, which he’s doing, and if he does that and adds goals and creativity to his game as time goes on, it’ll become difficult to leave him out of the side. He’s a great player who rarely gives the ball away and has the quality to see and pick out a pass, as well as utilise his electric pace. He has wonderful attributes, yet it’s our job as a coaching staff to find the best way to utilise his attributes. Dacky’s goal today, on top of the one he scored against West Bromwich Albion, before the international break, helps him increase his confidence and get back to the level he should be at. His goal today was typical of him, arriving late to tap it home with a nice clean finish.”
“It was important to start this block off with a win, and yet, we talked about it during the week by making that point that, if we have an ambition to be towards the top of the table, then we need to beat certain teams, with total respect to Millwall, who have started their campaign well, we need to be toppling the likes of them if we want to be towards the top end of the table. I felt today was a game we needed to stamp our authority on and win, as the case will be in our next home game against Luton Town, which, with total respect to Luton, should be a game that we target and come out of victorious. In terms of Reading away at the Madejski, well, you don’t know what you’re getting from Reading at the moment, I think they have be brilliant with the ball, but vulnerable at the back as well, so our job now is to pick the right team and go see if we can get the job done and come back to Lancashire with all three points.”
