After watching his side dominate in all aspects of the game, bar the scoreline in Rovers’ 3-1 defeat away at Vicarage Road, against Watford, on Wednesday night, boss Tony Mowbray revealed his thoughts and his praises regarding his team’s performance to the club’s media team.
“We were pretty good for long spells, tonight and yet we’ve lost three goals. We can’t get away from that fact and that’s something we’re going to have to tinker with, by working on stopping transitions that happen against us. We need to do that against the better teams in this division, by maybe tucking our full-backs inside in order to not expose the centre-halves, rather than pushing them up the pitch as we normally do, because against the lesser teams, I think we’ll be alright. I think there’s enough excitement surrounding our team. I said to them in the dressing room at the end there, that they let Watford ‘off the hook’ tonight. They were in the Premier League last year and have got some really special and talented footballers, but we need to keep pushing hard and continue believing that we’re doing the right things. We’ll see where were are after a dozen games, rather than looking at the table after six, because I’m really excited about the next half-a-dozen games, because if we can maintain the forward play and the intensity that we’re producing at the moment.
“The goals we conceded were really soft. They were so unlike what we’ve been producing so far this season and yet they have got some pretty special attackers. I think I real over the summer that they wanted £50m for their lad (Ismaïla) Sarr, during the window, which didn’t happen, of course. That shows that they have a lot of top players and I thought we competed really well against them. I’ve just said to the lads in the dressing room that we have to increase the percentages of quality around the final pass, in order to pick the right options. Their third goal is a prime example of that, because it didn’t come from Darragh (Lenihan) overstretching, it came from the silly miscommunication, five seconds earlier, in the middle of the park between Ryan (Nyambe), Lewis (Holtby) and Bradley (Johnson). Just to lose the ball in that area of the pitch without being under any real pressure, was a bit frustrating, so we have to take care of the ball a bit better. We don’t like losing matches and I don’t want to get too down on them, because we’ve produced a lot of positives from tonight, but we’ve lost three out of the six we’ve played, which is not good. I can see this team going on a run where we go, lots and lots of games unbeaten, which will hopefully include a lot of victories. We need to stay positive and keep believing. The lads are all disappointed to have lost, but they know that, they came here and played pretty well despite losing. If our penalty had gone in, it would have been a very interesting last 20 minutes, because they would have felt the nerves a bit, even more so if they had gone down to 10 men in the first-half. I would have thought that they would have had to concede more ground, had they had (Christian) Kabasele sent off, but unfortunately it wasn’t our night. Ultimately, we were pretty good tonight, but a potential result slipped through our fingers and we’ve come away with nothing.
“I’ve praised Ben (Brereton) for his goal, but I’ve also said to him that he should have been in and around the six-yard box more often, trying to sniff out the rebounds from Ben Foster’s great saves. After their ‘keeper parries a ball down, Ben’s not there. He has to be there to tap a few of the bouncing balls home, because that’s how centre-forwards get their goals. I don’t need screamers from 20-yards out, I need him to follow up the goalie’s parries by tapping a few in from a couple of yards out. But Ben’s been working really hard this year. There’s no form of criticism there from me, because we forget how young he still is. Even though he looks like a man, he’s still only 21-years old, which means we can’t be too harsh on him, even though he needs to work on some of his decision making. He’s still got habits of a young footballer that we’re gradually trying to change in training. Nobody should question his talent, because, as his great goal tonight showed, his talent and work-ethic are very obvious to see. I hope he now develops a hunger for the goals, especially now that there’s more competition for places up front after we brought Harvey (Elliott) in. We also have young (Tyrhys) Dolan waiting in the wings, as is (Sam) Gallagher, whilst Bradley Dack is also only weeks away from making a return, so the competition for the forward spots will be very stiff.
“I think the most exciting thing for me from Harvey’s game tonight, was his combinations with Ryan and Adam. If he can come in on his left foot, which sets Adam off on a run, Harvey’s weight of pass is amazing. His ability to drop it in over people’s heads, or slide it in inside centre-halves is outstanding and that will surely help Armstrong score a lot of goals this season, if Harvey can produce what we think he can produce coming in off the right-hand side.”
