After again witnessing his side fight back from a goal down to only come away from the game with a point, Rovers boss Tony Mowbray offered his thoughts on his side’s 1-1 home draw with Stoke City, who ended the game with 10-men.
“It would have been a bit harsh on Stoke City had we come away from today with all three points. Stoke came and played a good game today. Their experienced footballers, the likes of Joe Allen and John Obi Mikel looked very comfortable on the ball and they looked like they knew what they were doing. Neither of those two played for Stoke when we went to their place in December and you can see what they’re about, given the quality that they possess. This is one of those games where you take the point and move on. Saying that, at 1-1 with 15 minutes left, you’re hoping that with the pressure that we had, we could push on and go ahead during a spell where they were pegged back. Did we get into enough good positions in order to score another one? I’m not sure. We had a few things flash across goal, but most of the time the ‘keeper smothered our attempts. Maybe if he’d have saved or parried them, we could have stuck something in on the rebound? I’m not sure. Overall, we didn’t really create chances with enough quality in order to score a second, but it was more a case of ‘huffing and puffing’ without reward. Saying that, I have to give Stoke credit for the way they came and performed.
“I thought we deserved the equaliser, today. We put our ‘foot on the gas’ around 10 minutes before the goal went in, and I think the second bout of changes really increased the team’s intensity levels for whatever reason. I’ve talked about the fitness of Bradley (Dack) and Lewis (Travis) and how they need to get up to speed, despite playing today at around 60-70%. They’re not where they need to be for this team at the moment and yet, if I don’t give them game time, they aren’t going to be able to get up to speed because there’s not time between training and the games to fit them into a youth team game. It’s all about finding the balance between keeping the team’s intensity up, whilst also trying to get these players back up to speed. It’s either forcing them in, in order to help them and potentially see the team suffer off the back of it, or I bin Travis and Dack off completely and just keep going with the players who, I feel, have more energy? My feelings at the moment are that we need to try and get them up to speed as soon as possible, because, ‘Sod’s Law’ of today’s game is that, we probably needed Dack on after the sending off, because he would have been able to finish the balls that were bouncing around and the ones that broke loose and yet the reality was that he came off before the sending off. Stoke, at that point, weren’t putting everyone behind the ball, they were trying to stretch the pitch and play on the break. Sometimes, you have to accept that things like this happen. Bradley’s ultimately getting closer to returning back to his peak after adding another 70 minutes into his tank today, which was more than the hour he had last week. We’ll see what we’ll do with him on Tuesday and we’ll keep rolling.
“The coaching staff feel as if John’s (Buckley) best position is at attacking midfield. He’s got amazing ability, when you watch him in training, to slalom round people. His upper body can shift, and he can move the ball really well. Before he came on, I told him to play higher up the pitch than usual, to try and threaten the goal and not worry too much about tracking back and that ultimately paid off. We ‘huffed and puffed’ for 70 minutes and after getting that goal, we believed that we can go on and win it from that point, yet, their sending off made things harder for us because it allowed them to put everyone behind the ball and virtually play with a back-seven, which made things really hard for us to break down.
“I haven’t seen the offside goal yet, but my analysts were telling me that it was onside. I had a little moan at the fourth official and he wrote down in his book that we’re not supposed to be commenting on things we see on the laptop in the dugout, so we’ll have to wait and see if there are any repercussions from that exchange. All I was trying to say was that, they have to get those types of decisions right. That’s why the Premier League has VAR. If that’s onside and that goal hasn’t been allowed, that’s ultimately cost us two points from this game. I know and understand that human error is a part of the game, but it’s frustrating after scoring a pretty good breakaway goal that it was chalked off via an incorrect decision.
“We work hard on set-pieces and as I’ve talked about in the past, we delegate them to the staff. However, sometimes we come up against bigger players and I think that was the case today. When we were trying to match-up our lads with theirs, it was a case of fitting in the combination of zonal and man-marking. I was disappointed at half-time, that the zonal player who was in the middle of the six-yard box couldn’t affect the cross, never-mind the guy who was marking their goalscorer. I think for a few years, we’ve been pretty decent at defensive set-pieces, but that’s maybe three, ‘first-contact’ headers we’ve failed to get on. I can think back to Swansea City away at the start of the season, where they scored a straight header off a corner out of nothing. Those types of goals are so disappointing, because after all the work that you do prior to the game, seeing the opposition score a straight header from the corner is a frustration, but sometimes you’re outpowered and have to accept it, but we work pretty hard on set-pieces, so it’s very disappointing to have lost the type of goal we did today.
“Jarrad (Branthwaite) was very good today. I think he keeps things simple and just does his job, which is remarkable considering he’s 18. Sometimes, as an 18-year old, it’s pretty hard to come up against experienced 28/29-year old grown men who have been around a long time, playing at the highest level and know how to use their bodies against you. Generally, he did exceptionally well. His distribution was good, he competed very well, and he looked steady. He offers us a balance, similar to that of Scott Wharton. Scott is of a similar ilk, in that he ‘does what it says on the tin.’ He doesn’t try to do anything overdramatic and I think Jarrad, alongside Darragh Lenihan, will do fine for us. He just needs to concentrate on doing his job, feeding the full-backs, feeding the midfielders, turning it around for Armstrong when it’s suitable to go over the top, win some headers and put himself in good positions. Overall, I thought he did a fine job today.”
