Tony Mowbray said his use of Harvey Elliott in a false nine position was to try and exploit the lack of speed in the QPR backline. 

Rovers were edged out in a tight game by a second half strike by Yoann Barbet that gave Rangers their fourth win in five matches, but first at home since November. 

For Rovers, it brought an end to their unbeaten start to 2021 having taken 10 points from a possible 12 in January.

They started February with a defeat, one of six matches this month, and a change in formation as Elliott played centrally of an attacking three, with top scorer Adam Armstrong to the left and Sam Gallagher recalled on the right.

Joe Rothwell, who had previously played as part of the attacking line dropped into midfield, and asked if we was searching for the right combination at the top end of the pitch after failing to score, Mowbray said: “No, I think the forward areas are fine.”

Armstrong scored twice when the sides met at Ewood Park in November and gave Rob Dickie a torrid time in that fixture which Rovers won 3-1.

The two came up against each other again, with Armstrong moving to the left of the attacking line to try and target the pace of the Rangers defender, as Mark Warburton operated with a back three.

Asked if that was the reason why Elliott played centrally and Armstrong to the left, Mowbray added: “It might have been, what do you want me to say?

“You saw the formation, it’s my prerogative to pick a team and you play strengths against perceived weaknesses.

“Dickie is a very good footballer yet he can’t run like Armstrong can so you put speed against no speed and I think we damaged them first half, got into some great areas but didn’t take the chances.

“That’s what football is. You wouldn’t put your fastest striker against their fastest defender, you put him against where their slowest defender is, that’s football, and if you have to move him a little bit to do that then that’s what you do.

“It’s not rocket science. I’m not stood here creating a new football formation, Armstrong and Gallagher played up top and we played a false nine which was how we played.

“We tried to expose the lack of mobility of the defenders of QPR, so we put our speed and power against them.

“It didn’t work because we didn’t score a goal and you can stand there and say ‘why didn’t you play Armstrong down the middle he might have scored three today’.

“But we might not have created any chances and we could have lost 2-0.

“That’s football, you’ll never know. That’s the formation we played and why we did it.”

Barbet’s goal was one of two efforts on target from the hosts who held out for a clean courtesy of two excellent blocks and two fine saves by goalkeeper Seny Dieng.

The win ended Rovers’ unbeaten start to 2021, and Mowrbay said: “It’s hard to take when you lose 1-0 and your goalie doesn’t make a save.

“You have to dig in for a bit, we’re not Man City or Real Madrid, we can’t dominate completely for 90 minutes, we have to fight for a little bit and then your footballers have to get on top and start passing the ball.

“Starting off you have to head some balls out, win second balls, loosen them off you because they’re playing on the front foot.

“For the opening 20 minutes we sucked it up but for the next 70 minutes I think we were the team in the ascendancy.

“They have some experienced players who can of course give you problems but I thought generally we were in the ascendancy.

“We were trying to break them down, be positive, break them down, play forward, run forward and then when they scored we had to gamble.”

Rovers had to weather some early QPR pressure, and did so well, a Todd Kane miss apart.

They grew into the game thereafter, Harvey Elliott missing one excellent chance, while Dieng needed to be at full stretch to keep out an Armstrong free kick.

But Mowbray didn’t feel that spell leading up to the break was his side’s best of the game, making reference to a golden chance for Armstrong in the second half. 

“No, I thought we had our best chances second half, I thought after the first 20 minutes we were pretty dominant for the rest of the game but you have to score goals when you’re on top and we didn’t today,” he explained.

“Sometimes we’ve scored three, four, five, yet we’ve had games like Bristol City and Stoke City away, Nottingham Forest at home where we have lots of chances and don’t score and that was today.”