After Rovers suffered their eighth defeat of the season, which they suffered courtesy of a 1-0 away defeat at Stoke City, Tony Mowbray spoke of his frustrations after his side failed to break down another stringent defensive block.
“Scoring goals hasn’t been a problem for us this year and yet, there have been some pretty crucial away games, over the recent weeks where we weren’t firing. Today’s game was different to say, the game at Bristol City because at Bristol, we had over 20 shots, whereas today we only had three on target. Today’s game was against a packed defence, which they created after they went ahead because once they took the lead, they became very hard to break down because they sat in with a five-at-the-back, they isolated their striker and they didn’t get over the halfway line for half an hour in the second-half. Saying all that, we still have to score with the chances we created, even though they weren’t ‘clear-cut chances’.
“It would have been an interesting game if we’d made it 1-1 and they’d have been more on the front-foot and attacked, because I truly believe we would have had more success, because having them come onto us leaves space in behind their defence for the likes of (Adam) Armstrong, (Sam) Gallagher and (Harvey) Elliott to run into. Ultimately, today was a frustrating day for us. There was a lot of good positive stuff today, however, it was a case of a young team trying to break down a big, strong, physical side.
“If you’re a Blackburn Rovers supporter, although you’d be disappointed with today’s scoreline, surely, you’re able to see the positives this young team are showing? They’re dominating matches in this league, but they’re a team in progress. We need to keep working on putting the finer touches to the team and to their individual games. How do you score against eight or nine defenders who are sat behind the ball, not coming out? When are you going through them? When are you going over them or hitting long shots? These are all things we work on in training with the team, but it’s just frustrating that today, we couldn’t get past a Stoke City team who have had 8 clean sheets in their last 10 away games. Michael (O’Neill) is a manager with international pedigree with Northern Ireland and he knows how to set up a team, defensively, having played against the likes of Germany, Italy and Spain. That experience helped Stoke today and we’re ultimately left frustrated as a result, however we’re left with a lot of positives as we’ve come away from home and been dominant, although it doesn’t feel very good because we’ve got no points.
“I would talk about the likes of (Bradley) Dack, today. I think Dack makes a big difference for us in games, like today. I’ve said that for a long time and yet, he’s been out for a year. I can’t keep harping back to Bradley, although I think that this team have been amazing this season at scoring goals and playing exciting football. It’s just been on days like today against packed defences where Dack can make a difference by sticking his backside in, he can roll defenders, he can stick it through people’s legs and pass it into the corner of the net. I’d also have to say that (Ben) Brereton was a miss today. He’s been really good this season at dribbling with the ball in the box and shifting it from foot to foot. We can all talk about who’s not available but, we’ve fallen a bit short today in scoring the goal that would have given us our ‘just deserts’, because I don’t think we deserved to lose that match.
“I don’t want to try and make excuses by talking about injuries because as I’ve said to the squad, we have to get on with it using those who are fit and available. I know I do mention the injured players, because those who are unavailable need to know that we are missing them and we feel for them and yet, I don’t want to create a blame culture or create excuses. I understand that I try to raise the expectation of this team, this season, and we’re falling a little bit short at the moment which is a frustration for me and the squad as, I’m sure, it is for the fans who can’t come and vent their frustrations in the stadium, if that’s what they want to do. These young lads are trying their socks off to help this club climb the table and we’ve still got a lot of games to go and I believe that, when we get a little bit of help and greater depth, we’re not going to be far away. I say that almost every week, yet we’ve had a couple poor 1-0 away defeats. They’re difficult days when you dominate the ball so much and you can’t get your rewards for such domination of the ball.
“Daniel (Ayala) picked up a knock in the last game. We have to give him huge credit for the way he kept the ball alive in the box, for Adam’s winner on Wednesday, but he took a knock in the game and as a result, he’s missed today. I don’t think his injury is a bad one. I think he’s just bruised the bones in his foot, which can be painful, so we have to wait for it to settle down. We hope he’s going to be ready for Boxing Day, because both Scott (Wharton) and Derrick (Williams) have long-term injuries. We have to explore the possibility of whether we can go into the market in January and bring another centre-half in, otherwise, I’m not sure we’re going to get through with young Hayden Carter, for example, who, although he’s a good young prospect for us, but if our ambition is to win games and be towards the top end of the table, then we need another body. Bradley Johnson played there today, who’s naturally a central midfielder. It’s not ideal, but we’ll see how we are within the next week or two.”
