Eustace sends clear message over Blackburn style of play
John Eustace has insisted he does not want to overhaul Blackburn Rovers’ style of play despite being more direct in the last two matches.
After playing such a profound possession-heavy style under Jon Dahl Tomasson, Rovers have been far quicker to move the ball from the back to the front.
That proved very effective against Stoke City, a 3-1 win victory at Ewood Park, but less so at Birmingham City. Rovers struggled to retain possession, sustain attacks and create clear-cut chances.
Eustace was clear that he is not trying to undo the impressive work Tomasson implemented in possession but instead find a better balance to improving the team defensively, having conceded 57 goals in the Championship.
We’re not here to do loads of things drastically different,” Eustace insisted.
“We just want the lads to be more difficult to play against. That’s it.
“I want the ball to play with freedom and play the lovely football that we know they can play. We want to embed that.
“We have a lot of ideas on how we want to play football. Watching Blackburn Rovers play over the last 18 months has been really exciting.
“There is some fantastic talent here and we are certainly not trying to stop doing that at all. I want to make us a little bit more competitive and a bit stronger without the ball.”
He added: “I think we want to be harder to play against, more competitive. We haven’t had a clean sheet in a long time.
“That is your first marker down and you build from there. It is difficult, we haven’t got the training weeks, it’s a lot of classroom work, individual meetings.
“We can get a bit of work on the grass but in an ideal world, it would be nice to have some clear Saturday to Saturday weeks to do some solid defensive work with the boys.
“We can’t, no excuses, and I am very confident his group can improve soon.”
