‘An eventful night’ – Mike
Mike Sheron was pleased his side found a way to win, as Rovers Under-21s picked up their first points of the Premier League 2 campaign with a 3-2 victory over Leicester City, but says there is still plenty of room for improvement.
In an eventful contest at Ewood Park, Rovers led three times thanks to goals from Igor Tyjon, Lewis Bell and James Edmondson, having twice been pegged back by Henry Cartwright and Kian Pennant.
Both sides were reduced to 10 men in the second half, as Olabade Aluko and then Paul Murphy-Worrell both saw red, but Rovers held on for the points after Edmondson headed home the winner 14 minutes from time.
Speaking to RoversTV after the game, Sheron said: “I’m obviously delighted to collect our first points of the season.
“I think we’ve played better than that this year and I think we made it a lot more difficult than probably what it should have done, because I thought we started the game really well.
“In the first 15 minutes, we scored a goal and I thought we could have got two or three more, but we didn’t take our chances and that seems to be the story of our season so far.
“The opposition went up the other end of the pitch and took their chance and I thought it could be a tough night. It was a lovely night for football, but I just don’t think we passed the ball with any purpose.
“Maybe confidence was a bit low, because we haven’t won too many games, but we challenged them to move the ball a bit quicker and be on the front foot and do the basics a bit better.
“In the second half, it became a bit more eventful, with two sendings off and the goals, and we conceded and our game management wasn’t very good, but really pleased to somehow get over the line and we scored three goals tonight, one from a set-piece, which was pleasing, but our game management is definitely something we have to get better at.
“You need to find a way to win games of football, so I’ve got to give them a lot of credit from that side of things. We’ve been critical this year because we haven’t taken our chances, but we took three tonight, so I’m pleased with that.
“We all want to win games of football and we’ve struggled to do that this year, but some of our performances have been quite pleasing. I felt like we were the better side tonight, but we gave them too many opportunities and too many occasions when they were allowed to punish us.
“If we’d dominated the ball a bit better then they wouldn’t get those opportunities, and that’s something for us to learn and develop and improve upon.”