Tony Mowbray heaps praise on ‘brilliant’ hat-trick hero Adam Armstrong

Tony Mowbray praised the influence of “brilliant” Adam Armstrong after his second hat-trick of the season fired Blackburn to a 5-2 thrashing of Huddersfield.

Armstrong reached 25 in all competitions in Blackburn’s best performance for some time.

His first came from a close-range header he couldn’t miss, before he played a part in Ben Brereton finishing off a neat team move to double the advantage.

An own goal by Ryan Nyambe halved the deficit but Rovers blitzed the Terriers with three goals in six second-half minutes, as Brereton provided for Armstrong to slot his second, before Armstrong himself set up Sam Gallagher to hammer home with a little help from Ryan Schofield.

And the 24-year-old completed his hat-trick by slamming past Schofield after more shocking defending.

Josh Koroma curled a consolation into the corner but Armstrong and his fellow strikers had already inflicted the damage. Rovers move up to 15th after beating the Terriers for the first time since March 2014, and Mowbray thought his leading marksman could have scored more.

“It’s no surprise to me. I’ve had Adam before when he scored 20 goals, I think, for Coventry,” Mowbray said.

“There’s a lad who practices off both feet every day really. It’s no accident when you’re pretty good at what you do and to be honest, he should have scored another two first half, I think.

“A brilliant ball from (Amari’i) Bell when he mis-contacted at the back stick and then he laid Brereton in for what he thought was a tap-in when maybe he should have shot himself.

“Adam’s still a work in progress he would have to say. He’s missed a few penalties, he could easily be up there at 30 goals.

“I’m pleased for Adam every time he scores because he’s a brilliant kid and when we’ve had some disappointing days, for such a young lad, he’s the voice in the dressing room. That’s why he gets the captain’s armband sometimes because he’s opinionated about his football team.”

Huddersfield still need five points to guarantee survival and although it’s unlikely they will get relegated, this performance will concern Terriers fans, whose team have lost four of their last six.

Manager Carlos Corberan said there were too many mistakes in a “negative” performance.

He said: “Very negative performance in a lot of moments of the game. Very negative result.

“Very disappointing feeling because we wanted to come here and get the points that were necessary to hit our target (safety). We didn’t do it. There was so much of the game when we made many mistakes, of different players, and all at the same time today.

“We started the game really badly, conceded two goals we have to avoid. We finished with a little better feeling in the last minute of the first half.

“After, we wanted to go for the game, take some risks and attack more because we knew the most important thing for us was to try and go for the three points today.

“We didn’t do it. In the moment we lost a bit of balance, the opponents counter-attacked. Another mistake to make the third goal. We conceded five goals that we cannot do.

“We needed control to not concede goals that we did today.”