After watching his side only leave Ewood Park with a point, after a battle with Cardiff City that saw the clash end goalless, Rovers boss Tony Mowbray was left delighted with his team’s third consecutive clean sheet, but disappointed that Rovers weren’t heading into the international break with nine points from their opening four games.
“We’re definitely a tad frustrated that we’ve not grabbed all three points. We had a fantastic opportunity during the last 20 minutes, against ten men to try and grab the victory. We huffed and puffed against their nine men who were camped, and they made it very narrow for us in and around their box. I’d have to say that Cardiff are a very experienced side with some experienced defenders and midfielders, and it was hard to break that down in order to get through. I have to give Cardiff a lot of credit because they made it difficult for us. They don’t play the way that would really suit how we’ve set up this season, which is fine as nobody is telling anybody they have to play a certain way. When you’re dealing with a lot of directness, you have to be good at second balls and being able to deal with the first ball and get enough men around the knockdowns, and we competed really well today.
“Cardiff were a threat today and they’ll be a threat to everybody this year, because you only have to look at Kieffer Moore, who is a real handful for anybody. We’re pleased with the clean sheet, we’ve accrued three on the bounce now, but I’m just disappointed that we couldn’t find a late winner, particularly during the last 20 minutes when it was like the Alamo, where all we needed was something to break for us, like a deflection to send their ‘keeper the wrong way, or a screamer into the top corner. It wasn’t to be. We just couldn’t find that extra bit of quality to make the difference that would have got us all three points.
“Late on, it never looked like a game we were going to lose, because it became hard for them to release the pressure with ten men. They had Moore up front and they could let him fight for the ball in the air, but generally, we managed to ride that out and start the next wave of attack. They sat and defended the edge of their box really well. They were narrow, tight and compact and that made it hard for us. We tried to get overloads and ended up putting a lot of balls into their box which were ‘meat and drink’ to Sean Morrison and Curtis Nelson and it became difficult to get behind them. We have to give credit to them, but we’ll live to fight another day against a team who put men behind the ball. That being said, when they had all 11 men, they came and had a go for most of the match and they’re a decent, experienced side who finished in the playoffs last year, so to be disappointed not to win is probably showing how far we’ve moved on as a club and how our ambitions have increased.
“I think the clean sheets are important, of course. We had a very late drop out from our skipper, Darragh (Lenihan) this week, who’s been fantastic this season. Thankfully Daniel (Ayala) came in and played his first 90 minutes in a long, long time. Whilst he would have found the pace difficult against a real target-man up-front, it’ll stand him in good stead in the long run and he used his experience today, which we needed. We’re all left a bit frustrated, but Daniel getting 90 minutes is one positive. Keeping a third clean sheet on the bounce, is another positive. This shows that there’s plenty to look forward to after the international break. Daniel had to use his experience today because he’s still not ready physically to play consistently, yet. They had a very experience team, as I mentioned, and they used all their experience in order to see that game out during the last 20 minutes. There’s not secret that when I look at our frontline, which has an 18-year old in Tyrhys (Dolan), a 21-year old in Ben (Brereton) and a 23-year old in Adam (Armstrong), we have a very young group of lads trying to break down a very experienced backline and unfortunately, we didn’t quite manage it today.
“I think the performances this season have generally, been pretty good, even in the defeat at Bournemouth. We probably deserved more than a defeat because I thought we were very good on the day, and yet their quality at the top end of the pitch ultimately made the difference. I think they had five shots on target that day, and scored three, so when you talk about strikers being the difference in any top team, Bournemouth showed that with their exceptional strike-force that day. We’ve got some talented young strikers and they will get better as the season unfolds, I’m sure. If we can keep clean sheets at one end and score goals in the other, that’s not a bad formula to win games with.
“We’re going to give the lads a few days off after today, because they’ve worked extremely hard. I think Lenihan won’t be going with the Republic of Ireland and we hope to get him back before the Nottingham Forest game after the break, because his injury isn’t a bad one. We just have to bed things in, because we’ve got plenty to work on, as we saw today. We need to work on moving the ball around the box and creating chances against deep block defences, which is what we struggled with today, but apart from that there are a lot of positives. We’re frustrated that we’re not at nine points, instead of seven from the games we’ve played, but we’re moving in the right direction, I’m sure.
“Dealing with transfers and players is never easy. We’re in a similar situation to other clubs in that we don’t have a lot of money, and yet some other clubs have sold some players in order to spend a few million on improving their squad. We haven’t sold any of our assets which is good. I’m delighted that nobody’s come knocking for some of our top players because we’re trying to build a team and we don’t want to lose any of them. We’re trying hard to add to what we’ve got and to create competition. Let’s see if anything drops in both, over the next few days before the international window closes and over the next fortnight before the domestic window shuts.”
