Blackburn boss Tony Mowbray sees enough confidence and belief in his players to satisfy him after getting back to winning ways with a 2-0 victory at Millwall.
Prior to Saturday afternoon, Rovers had picked up just a point from their last seven league games but a goal in each half from Bradley Dack and Sam Gallagher ensured they returned from London with the victory.
“I didn’t think the level of performance was exceptional but we took our opportunities today and restricted theirs – we saw them off relatively comfortably in the end,” said Mowbray.
“Even after the run we’ve been on, it doesn’t seem evident to me that we’re a team that is lacking confidence and belief and we’re a team that knows it’s a good team, we just haven’t had our breaks.”
Mowbray broke tradition to draw attention to teenager Tyrhys Dolan, who particularly impressed him in the absence of talisman and top goalscorer Adam Armstrong, and Dack, who missed almost a full year of football with a knee injury recently.
“I don’t usually give special mentions to players but I think he deserves one today – he was like a whirlwind out there,” the Rovers boss added.
“I played centre-half and to think that the kid would be chasing you down after every touch like he did – it was an amazing performance for such a young guy.
“It’s been really difficult with him (Dack) to get him back up to speed and he understands that the team has to come first, but it might be after a proper six-week pre-season that we see the very best of Bradley again. He’s got enough quality to play in the Premier League no problems.”
Millwall boss Gary Rowett had little to complain about in the defeat, citing his side’s lack of “quality” as their main flaw.
The Lions had turned The Den into somewhat of a fortress lately, with their last home defeat in the league coming back at the beginning of January, but they failed to create enough goalscoring chances to protect that record against Blackburn.
Rowett’s side were also unlucky with the goals they conceded as both took wicked deflections on their way past Bartosz Białkowski.
Still the Millwall boss did not see too much between the two sides, and felt they could have benefitted from some extra bodies on the bench.
“In the Championship sometimes you’ve got to show different sides to your game and I just left that today we didn’t show enough quality and composure in the final third,” he said.
“We conceded two poor goals and as the game goes on we have a couple of chances – if I look at both teams though I’d say that Blackburn deserve the win today but there wasn’t really that much in it again.
“A bit of the frustration and disappointment is that I was thinking ‘can we go again?’ after Tuesday but they had more energy and aggression than us early in the game and the second goal just makes it a disappointing afternoon for us.
“We’ve got players out that would more-than-likely be getting in our side but I don’t like using those things as excuses – although it is inevitably going to have a detrimental impact when you’ve got less players to choose from and so many games in such quick succession.”
