After Rovers fell to their third successive away defeat against Queens Park Rangers, following an Ilias Chair winner, Blues boss Tony Mowbray dejectedly reflected on his side’s abject performance which led to the 1-0 loss.
“The result is the worst thing about tonight. We knew they are a good side and were going to have a lot of possession because they’re up there in the possession table, as we were last year, and we couldn’t find a way to win games. We thought we could frustrate them, and I genuinely thought for long spells that we were going to come away from here with a 1-0 win. Unfortunately, we’ve lost 1-0 from a great strike from their kid, but we needed to close him down better than we did.
“Ultimately, we’re left frustrated because it was a game that we knew they’d have a lot of possession in, and we let them have the ball at the back, but we probably weren’t good enough on the transition tonight, which is a surprise as that’s been a real strength of this team this season. Saying that, we had made some changes to tonight’s team, of course, only because I can see the levels of fatigue in the dressing room. Although we’ve just had a two-week break, training is intense, the games are intense, and it would have been extremely hard on the same players to go again. If we’d kept the same team, it would have been the third game in a week, where we’d have had the same selection, when you take Saturday’s game against Reading at home, into account. So, we made a few changes tonight, in order to help us target the Reading game with fresher players. I thought all of the players worked really hard, but I’m disappointed for them because they’ve come out with nothing from tonight after putting so much into it.
“QPR were always going to have spells of possession where they were going to dominate. It’s hard to concentrate for 90 minutes given how we’re asking the team to play and build via transitions. It’s hard work, especially against a team who are competent and rely on having possession. With how they shift the ball across their backline, it puts immense pressure on the strikers and midfield to press. It was a tough shift tonight. I genuinely thought we’d get our rewards and come away with three points, just through frustrating them and making them overcommit men forwards, yet ultimately, we’re left frustrated with a strike from 25-yards.
“I don’t think we created a lot of chances tonight. I haven’t seen the exact stats, but they had a lot of play in-front of us, which was okay, because the team knew that’s what was going to happen. I said to them in the dressing room at full-time, that my overriding disappointment was that we didn’t create enough going forwards. We only had a couple of attempts on target, and they hit their own post trying to cut out a cross, which could have been the winner. Yet, we were undone by some quality from a top footballer.
“Dan Butterworth worked hard and looked a threat in his first senior start for the club. It wasn’t a day where we were going to have a lot of the ball and in an ideal world, I would have played Tyrhys Dolan, given how much energy he has and how QPR play. Yet, his physical data suggested he couldn’t take three games a week. You always feel like he’s incredibly close from picking up an injury if he’s not managed correctly, because of how intense he is and how hard he works. Some of our players found out how your body can react to your brain forcing you to exceed your limit. Harry Pickering is an example and he’s picked up an injury tonight that leaves us in a lot of frustration. With respect to Tayo Edun, left-back is not his preferred position, yet he’s left-footed and can alter his game to be defensive minded, yet QPR grew down the right-hand side once Tayo had replaced Harry at left-wing-back. They began to give us problems down that side, yet the three centre-backs dealt with the aerial threat they presented. I’ve always said that you need to put your best team out if you want to win football matches, yet in this league, as we’ll find, the selection dilemma will be interesting as I don’t think Lewis Travis or Harry Pickering will make Saturday.
“We’re going to have to see what we make of the team on Saturday, in a game that has become more important after a defeat. I’ve just said to them, that sometimes, you can think you’re doing alright if you draw three games, yet that still gets you the same points as one win and two defeats. The most important thing is getting a result on Saturday against Reading and keeping the points total ticking over and take the defeats on the chin. That highlights why the draw with Coventry City was incredibly frustrating. Three of our past four games have been away and we’ve lost them all by one goal, which is really frustrating, but maybe that’s where we are? We have to come back and win the home games in order to keep our tally ticking over and we’ll do our very best on Saturday to try and beat Reading.
“Lewis Travis’ thigh has swollen right up after his clash in the first-half and its quite badly bruised. His muscle wasn’t really functioning enough in order to get the power needed to run. He more or less has a dead leg, but it has been badly bruised due to the collision. Harry (Pickering) has suffered a calf strain and he also can’t generate the power required in order to run. His calf muscle has gone, and we’ll have to study the severity of that over the next few days, after he’s had some scans, but it’s a huge blow. The lads generally worked extremely hard out of possession tonight, they put their bodies on the line and I can’t ask anymore of them. I’ve just said to them in the dressing room, that I want them to be a better football team on the ball, when we gain possession on the transition. We have to pick a better pass and create better angles when we have the ball, in order to hurt the opposition, so that they don’t commit as many men forwards as they started to do towards the end of the game, because they begin to fear your threat on the transition.”
