In the build-up to Rovers’ Tuesday night game away at Glanford Park to face Scunthorpe United, Rovers boss Tony Mowbray sat down with the club’s media team on Monday to discuss the latest team news and what the gaffer expected from his players, as well as the opposition.
“A majority of the starters from Saturday did a cool down session yesterday and didn’t get on the grass, so today will be their first day on the grass and as long as there’s no reaction after training today, then it will be a similar sort of squad going to Scunthorpe.
“How we dealt with the game was pleasing as it’s important for our aspirations, what we expect from everybody this year. What the supporters expect of us is to find different ways of winning matches. A pleasing thing was that we managed to see of their threat as I think going away to Rochdale was always going to be a difficult game and that’s what I said to the players before the game, ‘the epitome of League One could be Rochdale away on a cold windy wet day’, yet we went there and managed to get the job done.
“There are a lot of positives, but I think it’s just three points along the road for us. The next challenge, which I believe is a more difficult challenge, lays in-front of us on Tuesday, a team unbeaten this season, one of the better teams in the league, good at set-plays, hard to score against, it’ll be a real test for us I think.
“The clean sheet at Rochdale was pleasing despite the defensive problems we have. Mulgrew’s obviously going to be a big loss to any team, and the decision to leave him out of Saturday’s game was a pretty late one but ultimately it didn’t turn out to hurt us too much. Paul Downing came in and was very, very steady and did the job he was brought into do, Elliott Ward was also great, he dealt with the first balls and their physical threat up-front. We were very solid defensively as a unit, not just the back 4 and the keeper. I thought Smallwood and Evans were very strong, the two wide players in Bennett and Conway give everything they’ve got every week, so I think out of possession, the team worked very hard.”
Mowbray also compared the Scunthorpe fixture to the Bradford one that Rovers played a few weeks ago in terms of difficulty and the form of the sides going into the game.
“It’ll be a similar sort of game (to the Bradford fixture), I think they’re a very organised, physical, hard team who have a very defined way of playing and are difficult to play against. They push their full-backs on and have goalscorers in their team, obviously (Paddy) Madden can score goals, (Josh) Morris can score goals & (Funso) Ojo in midfield is doing exceptionally well for them. It’s a tough test, a big test, one which we have to make sure we’re really focused on, make the players aware of the oppositions’ strengths and weaknesses as we always do. The next test is always the biggest test so hopefully we will go to Scunthorpe and try and find a performance.
“Morris’ goals last year were huge for them, he’s a huge part of their game, coming off the wide area and he threatens the goal from dead ball situations. He’s hugely important to them and he’s a decent footballer, a threat but they have more than one as they’ve got threats all around the team, but it’s a game in which we’ll have to be at our best to get something.
“Despite the positive run of form, I don’t think it makes my job any easier, we’re a club with expectation and that expectation has fallen onto the team, we’re only one game away from a huge disappointment, so we have to minimise them as much as we can and we have to know that every game is a huge workload for us and the next challenge is the most important one, so we re-focus after the weekend with all our energy and preparation being towards Scunthorpe. I think my job is to win, but also change the mind-set of the club as results haven’t been consistent for a number of years now, however whilst half the squad is the same as last year’s, the other half is new and the task is to change the mind-set of the group. It’s not enough to win a football match, you have to really focus, put one game in the bag and then move onto the next one and having watched Scunthorpe, it will probably be our biggest challenge yet.”
