Rovers were slow in their build-up play in the win over Rotherham United – but Tony Mowbray said a failure to move the ball quicker wasn’t helped by the Ewood Park pitch.
The pitch looked to be showing signs of wear, while Barry Douglas twice got his feet caught in the turf when trying to turn in the first half as Rovers struggled to find any rhythm.
Rovers have struggled against teams who have played more direct, giving them little to chance to try and press high up the pitch, and against those who have played with a back three.
With Rotherham doing both of those, it proved a tough evening for Rovers who only showed signs of life late on when Harvey Elliott grabbed an equaliser with 10 minutes to play before Adam Armstrong snatched a winner deep into injury time.
“For us there’s improvements to be made, you can see that, I can see that. We have to move the ball quicker,” Mowbray said.
“I don’t think the pitch is helping, a few of the players have mentioned the pitch to me but that’s our pitch and we have to get on with it.
“There were a few examples of us trying to move the ball quickly but it’s not easy to do that on a surface that doesn’t help you do that.
“In spells we were okay.
“If football is about styles then their style doesn’t suit ours. There’s no right or wrong way to play football, yet when they don’t play in their own half it makes it hard to take the ball off them in their own half and that restricts our chance to score goals how we have been.
“They ask questions of you with how they play.”
Rovers put five goals past Wycombe, and beat Coventry City 4-0, having put the other two newly-promoted sides to the sword.
But a repeat never looked likely against the Millers, Joe Rothwell managing Rovers’ sole shot on target in the first half as they struggled to create opportunities.
Darragh Lenihan and Daniel Ayala saw plenty of the ball as Rovers tried to build from the back, an area of improvement that Mowbray says his side need to find.
“It’s the way we’re playing. When teams are a bit more direct it’s more difficult for us to find the fluency we want,” he explained.
“We’ve had our big results earlier in the season taking the ball off teams high up the pitch, with high intensity and high energy levels.
“When we’re forced to build up from our own box it’s not as fluent, I’m not sure we’re at the level to be able to dominate the ball right the way up the pitch in the way Norwich, Bournemouth and Watford who can build from the back and get the ball up to their forward players who are killers really.
“That’s where we’re trying to improve, it’s still got a bit to go.”
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