After Rovers picked up their second win in September, which came in a 2-1 triumph over Reading at the Madejski Stadium, Blues boss Tony Mowbray expressed his delight at the result, the performance and the attitude of his players after the win, to the club’s media team.
“When the wins come along, the points are always nice. It’s always a great feeling to win an away game in the Championship. Why? Because you’ve more often than not got a game at home next and as a manager, you want to feel as if you can win all of your home games, so winning away games makes it important in order to keep the momentum and morale within the squad high. I think today’s game was a very difficult one because Reading are a very good, technical team, with great individual players, who are all good in possession of the ball. You see the likes of Lucas João, who we had on loan when I first arrived, he can drag the ball from foot to foot, he’s strong, he’s 6’4” and was someone we would have liked to have signed, yet the money proved too much for us. Overall, I’m delighted with the performance and result from our perspective and yet, there were aspects of the performance where we lost intensity, despite the start of both halves being brilliant. The fact we couldn’t maintain the intensity is why I made the changes today, we brought in Corry Evans to the team because I knew we needed someone who could get into their faces and set the tone of the closing down, which both Corry and Lewis Travis, who was also good today, did well.
“It’s great for Bradley (Dack) to score because that gives him the confidence he perhaps didn’t have at the start of the campaign and now he’s seemingly back to the Bradley Dack we all know and expect. I’m happy with the points and happy for the fans who made the long journey down here because this is never an easy place to come as a lot of teams will come here, this year, and struggle, but we’ve done well to get the win here.
“I think the first half-an-hour of the game was really good. The difficulty for us was that, for two days straight, we’ve been working on playing with a three-at-the-back, with different personnel to those who started the game and yet we had an illness to Joe Rothwell and an injury to Tosin Adarabioyo overnight which forced us into some changes and yet, I’ve been telling the team for a long time that the formation doesn’t really matter in football, and that it’s your attitude and mentality that matters more. I’ve told them that they’re only footballers on a pitch covering patches of grass and that, if they can get across and do the job that they’ve been assigned to do, I’m not overly concerned about the formation as long as the attitude, the mentality and the principles of our play are there and well executed.
“The players showed today that, with a different team in-place, after a 20-minute meeting this morning, that they can go out on the pitch and put in a winning performance, which is pleasing as a manager. I know that they have the quality to execute the gameplan, but it’s my job to make them believe that they can. Generally, with footballers, if things don’t go well they want to know why and I try to say to them that, ‘as long as they work hard, have mentality of playing on the front-foot, play positively, trust in their teammates to do their jobs and trust in their talent, then you can achieve anything’, and I hope they believe that, which I think they do. The days where they get beat, I have to show them the positives of the game, which there always are with defeats, but we have to find consistency, I think, which is a big thing in the Championship and that is probably a key reason as to why all of these players aren’t playing week in, week out, in the Premier League. Saying that, I think on our best day, we’re good enough to match any team in this division.
“In the first half-an-hour, I saw the team full of confidence, who were playing the way that we want to play. I thought we could and probably should have been more than 1-0 up at half-time because we had some great chances. We also had some great chances in the second-half after Dacky’s goal, with one coming from Lewis Holtby that could have seen him open his tally on his debut after Dacky played him in. There were lots of positives from today and yet, for spells in the second-half, we had to hang on, especially towards the end because as I said, Reading have some very talented players, the likes of (John) Swift and (Ovie) Ejaria and the four strikers that they have at their disposal are all big, strong and athletic and so for us to see it out as comfortably as we did during the last 10 minutes, in possession of the ball was really pleasing and yet it helps when you have the likes of (Stewart) Downing, (Bradley) Johnson, (Bradley) Dack and (Lewis) Holtby picking the right passes.
“The ability to hold out for the victory in the final minutes, like we did today, comes from the experience, knowhow and knowledge within the side, which was something we lacked at times last season. It’s very difficult in training to re-enact the last five minutes of injury time because they (Reading) are gambling, pushing their fullbacks on, leaving their strikers up top and not running back, which is what creates the space in order to keep possession of the ball, if you as a team can recognise that then you can make life really difficult for them and yet if you keep giving them the ball back, they already have their four strikers and their fullbacks in attacking areas that are capable of taking advantage of the crossing opportunities which puts you under immense pressure. We learnt that at Elland Road last year, away against Leeds United where we lost after conceding two in added time, but the pleasing thing is that we learnt the lessons from last year and hopefully it won’t happen too often this year.
“I think Adam (Armstrong) will score goals this year as it’s part of his natural game. I’m asking him to work really hard up and down the wing and he’s turned into more of a ‘wide striker’ rather than a winger, but I think, coming in off of the left-hand side, on his right-foot, he’s a bit of a handful for any defender. I was sat directly behind him for the goal and he’s arrowed it brilliantly into the top corner, which was great for us and for him. Adam is a big player for us and the days where he doesn’t start for us, he should never think that he’s not part of the bigger picture going forwards for us, as he could be a brilliant plan for us some days, off the bench in order to change a game. Saying that however, he proved today why his selection from the start was justified as he caused a lot of havoc by playing on the front-foot and terrorising their fullbacks and we’re delighted for him for his goal and delighted that he contributed to the overall team victory.
“The whole attacking unit was on top form today. I think (Sam) Gallagher should get a mention really, as he’s a real ‘man mountain’. He’s untouchable in the air and really powerful and strong, he linked the play up well for us today, looked a threat and even got himself an assist for Dack’s goal. I was really pleased with all of them, including Stewy Downing, who I run out of superlatives for as it seems as if he never gives the ball away and has an eye for a perfect pass almost every time. He’s 35-years old, yet he’s running around all over the place like a spring chicken.
“Although I’m delighted with the team and their performance, we now need to turn our attentions towards Luton Town, next week at Ewood Park, which will be a great opportunity for us to get three wins out of three in September. Luton are a ‘ball retention’ team who pass expansively and try to play positively and out from the back in order to break opposition down. We need to be ready for that and prepare ourselves as best as we can in order to come away from that with a third consecutive victory.”
