Tony Mowbray Faces Challenges with Youthful Blackburn Rovers Squad
Tony Mowbray is having to throw kids into a man’s league – and he hates the idea of doing it before they’re ready.
Blackburn Rovers’ head coach cut a frustrated figure after Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Preston, a game that underlined just how stretched his squad has become. Five teenagers and only three senior players sat on his bench. One of them, 17-year-old striker Harvey Higgins, was sent on for the final 16 minutes.
Mowbray insists that kind of call will always be about necessity, not a badge of honour for playing the kids.
“This is a man’s world we play in,” he told BBC Radio Lancashire. “It’s horrible, intense, gritty. The lads you’re playing against don’t care if you’re 16 or 17 – they’ll trample over you to get the job done, they are playing for their living.”
He felt Higgins could handle that world, at least physically. Others, he says, are not quite there yet. Midfielder Frank Vare, 18, is one of those waiting in the wings, with the manager adamant opportunities will come only when the youngsters prove they can cope with the Championship’s demands.
“I felt Harvey was physically ready to go and help our team,” Mowbray said. “But some of the younger ones, they have got some talent in their boots, I just feel they’re not quite physically ready to play against these men.
“I will try and drip them in when the time is right. It’s down to them, not just me, they have to show me every day they can withstand the rigours.
“I don’t want to make their life too difficult too early. I’m never going to be the guy who plays the young guys just to prove a point. They’re on the bench because they have to be.”
Thin squad, tough schedule
The backdrop is brutal. Blackburn are heading into a sixth game in 18 days when Sheffield United visit Ewood Park on Tuesday night (19:45 BST). Injuries and unavailability have stripped the squad bare, leaving Mowbray trying to patch together a matchday group while also protecting the club’s academy prospects from being exposed too soon.
That pressure has pushed him into the free-agent market, but he is wary of quick fixes that don’t actually fix anything.
“It’s not an easy market, there’s loads of names,” he said. “I was leaving the ground the other day and loads of fans are shouting names at me.
“Everybody’s shown me the lists, I have got all the names, but which ones can help us and which are the same as we have already got?
“You don’t bring footballers in for the sake of adding numbers. They have to fit the squad. This team needs help in certain areas. We’re on the case. If nothing happens that’s because I don’t think there’s anyone out there who can help us.”
So he waits. And while he waits, he manages.
Identity on hold
What grates most is not simply the lack of bodies, but what it is doing to his plans. Mowbray arrived with a clear idea of how he wants Blackburn to play. Right now, that idea is stuck in his head and on the training-ground whiteboard, not fully on the pitch.
“We’re hardly doing any training for a couple of weeks,” he admitted. “It’s a major frustration for me, so early in your tenure you want to try to create your identity, how you want to play.
“The way to do that, having done it over 20 years, is repetition but at this moment we’re not doing that. We have to protect the team, get through this period, get to the international break.
“Hopefully we look a lot stronger and readier after the break to go and attack this league with more options.”
For now, the reality is stark: a manager trying to build something long-term while firefighting short-term problems, a clutch of teenagers learning their trade on the edge of the Championship furnace, and a club hoping the international break brings relief, reinforcements, and a chance to finally show what this Blackburn side is supposed to be.
