, Tony Mowbray full of praise for coaching staff as set pieces break down Leeds United

Tony Mowbray full of praise for coaching staff as set pieces break down Leeds United

Blackburn Rovers manager Tony Mowbray praised the work of his coaching staff during the International break. Leeds United’s downfall was set pieces on Saturday afternoon – something Rovers have worked on leading up to the clash.

Danny Graham and Darragh Lenihan’s goals helped Blackburn Rovers claim a 2-1 win against Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United on Saturday afternoon.

The victory takes Blackburn up to 7th place, tied on points with 6th and 5th place Norwich City and Derby County. The win comes after Rovers’ home loss to Sheffield United – their first home defeat since September 2017.

Tony Mowbray spoke to the Lancashire Telegraph after the game.

“It’s a big three points but every three points is big for us in this league. It was hard earned against a good Leeds side.

“There are positives and negatives in the international break, the positive being that you can study the opposition and their strengths and weaknesses and implement it.

“Thursday and Friday we spent two intense days on the opposition and I think it paid off, from the set plays it definitely paid off.

“Great credit to David Lowe and Ben Benson who I delegate set plays to. They recognised that Leeds have two huge headers of the ball in Jansson and Cooper and we manage to extricate them.

“We got Danny Graham free to score and Lenihan did that in the second half so it paid dividends.

“It was a competitive 90 minutes, I thought we could have scored more in that first half. Bradley was denied by the keeper and I thought we had a couple of other good opportunities.

“We played against a top team, you can see how talented they are breaking through. They move the ball out wide, get it in to your box, a high quality team, their physical stats are the best of any team in the league so it was a big test for us but one we came through.

“We will put the points in the bag and move on to Tuesday night.”

Tony Mowbray decided to take set piece specialist Charlie Mulgrew off corner duty for yesterday’s match, as he hoped the defender’s physicality would cause issues for Leeds United’s defenders – and it paid off.

 “It’s always a dilemma.

“From the day I walked in, Mulgrew scored from a corner against Burton.

“I remember the first training session and saying ‘why on earth aren’t you taking corners with your left foot?’

“I remember when he played for Aberdeen and I was manager of Celtic and he was whipping in these amazing balls.

“There’s the dilemma, because he’s 6’4” and can head the thing in, but the plan was because they only have two dominant headers of the ball, and we have Mulgrew, Lenihan and Graham, the plan would be to take them away from the danger area, and leave the other guy to try and go through the middle of a big space.

“That’s what happened and we scored a couple of goals from it.”

Rovers make the long journey down to Swansea City on Tuesday, where three points could carry them into the Championship play off places.

 

 

 

 

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