After Rovers were able to leave Carrow Road with a well-deserved point following a fine performance against top of the table, Norwich City, Blues boss Tony Mowbray reflected on the 1-1 draw and the upcoming international break, as well as the absence and fitness of Adam Armstrong.
“I think, based on the effort that the team put in today, a point was the least we deserved. Norwich City scored a great goal and you could feel their quality throughout the game, even though I think we had about four shots before they even got out of their half at the start of the game. Despite that, you could still feel their quality with every attack because they picked the right pass, they could make the right run and yet over the piece, I think we did enough to not lose the game, even though I think they probably wouldn’t have argued if we had won the game.
“It was a very end-to-end last few minutes to the game, almost like a cup-tie. With total respect to the team and the supporters, we don’t have a lot to lose at this point in the season, in my mind and we came here and played with a sense of freedom and we tried to continually be on the front-foot. I’ve watched a lot of Norwich’s games throughout their nine wins on the bounce they had before today, and teams have come here and just sat back and let them play. Nottingham Forest were a great example of that, midweek, as Norwich ended up with about 70% of the possession because Forest never asked any questions of Norwich and they just sat back and banked lots of men behind the ball, which is what a lot of teams do here. We’ve at times had the same thing happen to us at home and yet I feel that our group are better when playing on the front-foot and going after teams. If opponents are good enough to get through us, we either have to take the consequences or defenders have to do their jobs. We were good today and I thought the lads all bought in to what we were asking them to do and we almost came away with a win.
“Although we managed to implement our ‘front-foot plan’ today, we’ve been doing that all season, but a lot of teams play more direct than Norwich do. A lot of teams don’t take their goal-kicks into the 18-yard box against us, they push everybody up and boot it up front and then play which takes the press out of the game. Why did we look so impressive, at times, today? Because Norwich are a brave team who thrive on possession football, which is why they are where they are in the standings. Yet, that style does suit the way we try and play as opposed to some teams who are more direct and play off a centre-forward. A good example of that are Wycombe Wanderers who we have first after this international break. They won’t be playing in their own box, they’ll be booting it up to a big centre-forward and will go from there, with runners going in-behind him. It’ll be a totally different football match and yet, if anything, we’re probably suited to playing against the better teams in this division, who have a confidence about the way they play. I go back to those opponents who play more direct; we’ve had teenagers and midfielders playing at centre-half at times this season, and the heart of the defence is an area of the pitch where we’ve had a lot of unavailable players over the course of the season. As a result of that, we’ve at times, struggled against the directness of some teams and the basicness of heading footballs away from our own goal. That’s my professional view of the situation. Today was a game that suited the way we played, and I thought we played pretty well.
“Darragh (Lenihan) isn’t a young player anymore, but Taylor (Harwood-Bellis) is an extremely young player and Thomas (Kaminski) is a very experienced international goalkeeper who made the crucial saves when he had to make them. It would have been very disappointing had he not made the crucial saves late on, and we lost 2-1 because the effort we put in way brilliant. We need to take this point and build on it after the international break. The players who aren’t going away, have got a few days off now, so we’ll be able to work with them between now and the end of the break because after the international break we’re going to be working really hard to try and win some matches and see how many points we can accumulate between now and the end of the season.
“Taylor has defensive instincts and warrior-like attributes. He wants to win headers and tackles and wants to engage. He’s composed on the ball and has a nice right-foot. These are all good attributes and yet the test for him is to play for Manchester City, not Blackburn Rovers. That’s his challenge in his career and although we put demands on him to play passes, it’s probably nowhere near the demands that Manchester City put on their centre-backs. A good comparison for me is our centre-halves who are out on loan. When I watch their highlights and clips, there’s very little demand on the likes of Hayden (Carter) or Tyler (Magloire) to deepen off, receive the ball, stick it through the lines or put one over the top. They are there to simply defend and put their bodies on the line, whilst also doing exceptionally well. Ultimately, when they come back, they’re going to have to fit into the demands of this club and whilst as a centre-half, you need to be able to do the basics and defend well, you also need to be good on the ball. Why would we have Stewart Downing or Harvey Elliott playing in a team, if we haven’t got defenders who can give them the ball?
“I’m hopeful of having a few of the injured lads back after the international break, but I can’t make any promises. The likes of (Lewis) Travis and (Jacob) Davenport will probably be the closest to returning, but the likes of Corry Evans might miss out due to his international commitments. Because the Wycombe tie is on a Friday, Corry will have to fly straight to London, rather than to Manchester when he gets back because he has a game on Wednesday, meaning he won’t be back until Thursday, which is when we’re travelling, meaning we’ll meet him down south rather than at Brockhall or the hotel. It’s a bit of a farce, to be honest, that internationally committed players have to come back the day before the game, having just played three games in 10 days. We have to accept that and monitor the situation. We’ll pick our freshest team and hopefully it’ll be one that helps us to victory.
“Adam (Armstrong) played the other night against Bristol City, which was a calculated gamble we took after a long chat together. We thought we’d dominate the ball and create more chances against Bristol that we would do here. We decided to play him because he’s a brilliant finisher off of both feet despite him not being at 100%. I thought that, to bring him here on a five-hour coach journey, and expecting him to play against the league leaders whilst nursing a hamstring injury whilst also having me shouting and demanding at him to run and work harder, wouldn’t have been the right thing for his welfare and for the long-term of the team. Resultantly, we left him at home and hopefully he’ll be fit and ready to fire on all cylinders after the break.”
During the closing stages of his interview with iFollow, the boss elaborated more on his feelings towards the international break and how he believed it fit within the context of the current global pandemic:
“This international break is very strange and I’m not sure how the players are meant to cope with the demands of the games, especially in the current climate. Yet, they’re qualifiers for the biggest tournament in the world, which is the World Cup and every nation has a right to try and qualify. I’m sure that this is the final window of opportunity for the games to be played in, so that means you either bin the World Cup in Qatar off, in 2022 or you get on with the games. You see different nations, like Germany, for instance where their players would have to quarantine for 10 days after playing the games, so they’ve decided no to play those game, if I’m not wrong and that’s the case for some other national teams as well. I’ve always said that I’m not a political animal. I’m just a football coach who tries to work with and improve a group of players and they’re ultimately not my decisions to make.
“I just think it’s where the world is. You see that the Coronavirus numbers throughout mainland Europe in Germany, France and Belgium are sky-rocketing at the moment because they haven’t rolled out the vaccine there, which seems to be a big problem unlike here and as a result, you get worried about the safety of your players. Let’s hope this break doesn’t cause that many problems worldwide. The only problems it causes for us is surrounding Thomas. We hope he’ll come back fit, healthy and ready to play. Corry’s travel and workload is also an issue, because of the one day between both game and yet, although he probably won’t be in a position to play on Friday after playing on the Wednesday, we’ve told him to fly into Heathrow in order for us to meet him at the team hotel.”
