Blackburn Rovers fell to a 1-0 defeat at home to Middlesbrough.
Blackburn Rovers boss Tony Mowbray has suggested his side’s first-half display against Middlesbrough was the worst of his tenure and warned his players against a repeat performance, the Lancashire Telegraph report.
“I didn’t recognise many of them first half I would have to say. I’ve been here two years next week and not sure we’ve played as badly as that for 45 minutes in those two years. We nearly sneaked something in the second half which was much better, but the first half we don’t want to see any performances of that level ever again,” Mowbray explained.
Blackburn succumbed to a 1-0 defeat at home to Boro, with Britt Assombalonga scoring the only goal of the game after 19 minutes before the hosts were reduced to ten-men on the stroke of half-time.
From the outside looking in a slender defeat to a promotion challenger having played half the game with ten men isn’t too bad, yet Blackburn’s performance prior to Derrick Williams’ dismissal was wretched at best.
Mowbray rang the changes at half-time, withdrawing Jack Rodwell, Corry Evans and Ben Brereton with the latter guilty of giving the ball away on four occasions – more than any other player on either side over the 90 minutes.
Rovers have had a decent season so far following their promotion from League One, but seven defeats in their last 11 games have seen them drop down to 14th in the Championship table and ten points off the top six.
Mowbray will no doubt be looking to use the final 13 league games of this season to work out which players can reach the levels needed to push on and challenge for promotion in the coming years.
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