It wasn’t the return to Ewood Park that Tony Mowbray would have been hoping for as we lost 2-0 to Blackburn tonight. Mowbray spoke about the referee’s dubious decisions and whether or not we should bring VAR into the Championship.
PENALTY CLAIM
“No, I haven't had a chance [to rewatch the penalty claim] and all my staff said it’s a definite penalty. I know Mr Pawson is a Premier League referee he was at Man United Newcastle at the weekend and for some reason he’s back in the Championship today. Did he get it right did he get it wrong I don’t know. We have to live with the decision that he made and at the other end of the pitch Ben Brereton Diaz did what he did.”
NEED A STRIKER
“We looked at the data and they’re not very high in the division for chances created and shots on goal and yet they’re right up there because a percentage of the shots that they have seem to fly in and that was an example, their first shot on target and it’s in the top stanchion. I think the team played well today, we know we haven’t got a centre forward. I would like to play this game with a striker and I think the result might have been different but they’re a good team, a lot of players that I worked with for a long time but I thought we were good today but we didn’t score a goal. We’ve had a few of them over the last few months I think it’s seven or eight games without a striker but we’ve picked up enough points to do okay. We look forward to the day when we can put a team out where we believe we can come to places like this and bang the ball in the back of the net. Well done to them and when we move on to the next one.”
VAR?
“Listen, it's football. We can’t have it always can we? You know with VAR probably both of their goals would have been ruled out. Do we want VAR, do we not want VAR, it seems to cause a bit of carnage in the Premier League doesn’t it, it takes away the enjoyment of scoring a goal and celebrating and you have to wait ten minutes and then you can either re-celebrate or you don’t. Listen, it's football that I’m used to I think I’d prefer not to have VAR and we live with the emotion, you hope that the officials are really good and they can get their decisions right. If they’ve got a few wrong tonight then we have to live with it. I'm more performance based. I thought the team performed pretty well tonight, we pushed them back for long spells. We generally dominated, yes they looked a threat on the break and that’s because they’ve got some strikers that are bang on form really and have been for the last year and a half. I’ve said to them in there don’t get too down, make sure we stick together, we're a good team and when the team fits in the last component of the team and is in place we’ll be beating teams on a regular basis I'm sure.”
STRIKER RETURN DATE
“Hopefully on a regular basis after the World Cup probably. We’ll wait and see. Listen I enjoy watching the team, we can’t moan about having no strikers, we haven't got any strikers and yet we scored goals recently. We scored three at Reading, we went to Watford and scored two, scored two at the weekend without strikers so we can. Is there a better player than Patrick Roberts in this league? I'm not sure there is when I watch a lot of football and what a footballer he is. We just have to find ways of getting more players in the box when he dances past people as he does and sticks it through the legs and creates spaces and opportunities. We’re just not finishing them off at the moment, let’s keep going. A lot of Sunderland fans came here tonight, we’re disappointed for them but I hope that they can see a team that’s still fighting for them and trying their damndest really to find a way to try and win.”
