After Rovers suffered their second successive away defeat, this time at the hands of lowly Barnsley, a peeved Tony Mowbray reflected on a disappointing evening for Rovers. The boss briefly discussed the red card to Ben Brereton but was also quick to discuss Rovers’ fragility at either ends of the pitch.
“We’re hurting after back-to-back defeats. I thought we had to see off a really fast start by a young and energetic team in Barnsley, who are fighting for their lives, but the chances did come for us in the first-half and we failed to take them. I thought we grew into the game after the first quarter of an hour, but we’ve heard it all before. It’s a case of ‘could have, should have, would have’. We had chances to score two or three in the first period, but it wasn’t to be. I would have to say that the second-half performance was disappointing. They changed formation, changed a few players and their lad has scored with his first touch of the ball. It’s a real disappointment for us, and obviously, the sending off didn’t help our situation, because it didn’t allow us to build any momentum. It’s been another really frustrating day for us, but I’ve got no defence for that because we were not good enough. You could clearly see we weren’t good enough, because after that first-half, we should have scored the chances that fell to us, which we discussed before the game. You don’t get many chances against teams who are fighting for their lives down at the bottom, so you have to take the ones that fall to you, but we didn’t do that today. If we’d have gotten the opening goal, I’m sure things would have turned out differently, but I stand here hugely disappointed after a sub-par performance. We’ve got Leeds United on Saturday, who are top of the table, so we need to dust ourselves down and give it our best shot.
“It was similar to the weekend against Wigan Athletic where we couldn’t convert our dominance of the ball into goals. We have a vast array of strikers, yet none of them are firing at the moment. I said on Saturday that, that game needed a bit of magic from an individual that we haven’t got. We’ve got speed, power and threats over the top, but we probably needed a (Bradley) Dack-type player today. I don’t want to keep going back to what we don’t have at our disposal, because we’ve done pretty well without Bradley for a majority of the season, but we probably needed a bit of individuality from someone who, when the chance comes you just know they’re scoring and I think that’s what we’re lacking at the moment.
“I’m still confused as to how their lad (Conor Chaplin) has scored the header he did. He’s about 5’6” against Tosin (Adarabioyo) and Charlie (Mulgrew) who are twice his size. Does it surprise me? I’m not sure, but I’m really frustrated and disappointed about it. It’s difficult to talk to the players in that dressing room at the moment. Am I disappointed in that goal? Yes, because I was a centre-half. We even warned our defenders that, that type of dink into the box might happen, and yet he’s scored within seconds of entering the pitch. It’s frustrating, but I’m lost for words. We have to let things calm down and then refocus our concentration on Leeds at the weekend. I’m disappointed because, as I’ve said, had we scored first both today and on Saturday, we could potentially be here with six from six and to be stood here with zero from six, is really disappointing.
“I don’t referee the game. Ben’s just kicked their kid right in-front of us, to be honest. Whether it’s a red card for violent conduct or something else, I don’t know. Ultimately, he’s let the team down because at 1-0, we were trying to get back into the game. We changed formation, we changed personnel and were trying to give them problems by putting the ball in the box, but we ended up struggling for possession with a man down. That gave them the opportunity to slow the game down and waste whatever time they could on set-pieces. Barnsley saw the game out without threatening us before making it 2-0, in very similar circumstances to Saturday.
“I don’t want to stand here and criticise the team because they’re good lads. I’ve said that I don’t want to make excuses about injuries, but that team is a long way away from our best team, if we had everybody available. We just have to get on with it. We have to work with them, support them and ask them to go again in a few days’ time. I hope they’re all hurting in that dressing room. I know from my own experiences as a footballer, sometimes you get excuses in your mind, but I don’t care about them.
“Sometimes, even if you’ve prepared everything perfectly, you don’t play well, but if you want to be a really good team, a team capable of getting out of this division, you need to find a way to win on your bad days. The first-half didn’t indicate we were going to have a bad day, we saw off their early threat and then dominated until half-time, but we didn’t take any of the chances we created and ultimately due to that, we’ve lost the game. The top teams don’t lose those games. That’s what we have to try and work towards. The team have to try and learn and develop it. I question some of the players around their talent, their ability to stay with the ball, pick the right pass and whether they can do the right thing at the right moment. We have to keep going with the players we’ve got. I’ve brought a lot of these players to the football club and I understand that the responsibility is mine, which I’ll take fully on my shoulders. A few days ago, we were one point off the playoffs, but now we’ve lost two on the bounce and it’s hugely disappointing after the lads put themselves into such a fantastic position. We’ve let a few hopes flounder and it’s going to take a massive effort from this point to try and get back to where we were. Let’s keep rolling and see who’s available for the weekend, which will be a massive test for us.
“At the end of the day, we aren’t consistent enough for the top six. On Saturday, we dominated the game and never looked like losing, yet we lost that game and this one, 2-0. That means there’s a flaw there somewhere, and we need to keep working hard to find it and eliminate it from our side. We need to keep them motivated and going, especially in the current circumstances. There’s not point in me telling them that they’re all terrible, but we have to get better as a group. They have to come to the party and understand that we need to evolve into a team that don’t lose on their bad days, which is something we lacked today. Whether the characters, who aren’t on the grass, would have made a difference through their personalities alone, never mind the talent they possess, is something we won’t know until we get them back. You remove the talent from the equation and take their personality, we need people who, when the going gets tough, they’ll make sure their mate next to them is working hard to rectify the situation. I do think we’re missing some form of character at the moment, the likes of (Bradley) Dack, (Lewis) Travis and (Darragh) Lenihan are all big characters who we don’t have available. We just have to put this game past us and concentrate on the next task at hand and see where that takes us.”
