TONY Mowbray insists Blackburn Rovers have not suddenly turned into a bad side after their heavy defeat at Queens Park Rangers.

The 4-2 reverse means Rovers head into the international break 14th in the Championship having lost two of their last three games in what has been a frustrating seven days.

The game at the Kiyan Prince Community Stadium on Saturday saw the visiting defence exposed and breached with regularity, a late goal from Adam Armstrong needed to reduce the arrears to just two and give some more respectability to the scoreline. 

Mowbray was again left considering how to strike the right balance as he looks to get his side more on the offensive this season, confident it is the best way to improve on 15th last time around. 

Opening up the game in West London in a bid to pose more of an attacking threat ultimately proved costly in the second 45 minutes however.

“If you know anything about football, you can see that we are a decent
team but you can’t lose four goals,” Mowbray said.

“It’s just the balance for us as to whether we’re going to protect our back four and sit with the defensive midfield players like QPR did or whether we want to attack and score goals.

“First half we sat in and they scored a nothing goal really, a cross into the box we didn’t deal with.

“Second half we decided to attack and be more positive and open the game up and our defenders didn’t deal with the situation really.

“If you’re going to be a top player, a top defender, you have to be able to deal with things man-to-man.”

There’s no immediate chance to respond with internationals now meaning there is just under two weeks until improving Huddersfield, 3-0 winners over Hull on Saturday, visit Ewood Park on October 19.

Mowbray was not concerned about how beneficial having a break at this juncture would be for his side and was only focused on getting back to work and getting them ready to face Danny Cowley’s men, the new boss having got the Terriers up and running with back-to-back victories over the last week.

“It doesn’t matter (if it’s a good time or a bad time),” the Rovers boss said. 

“We’ve got two weeks now. They’ll rest the first week I think, it’s always a tough schedule.

“Some will go away on international duty, the others will have a few days training. And it will be training, it won’t be tactical, they’ll just keep ticking along and then we’ll build up to Huddersfield at home in the second week.”