Steve Cooper: We should have scored four or five in victory at Blackburn

Posted Thursday, February 10, 2022 by PA

Nottingham Forest boss Steve Cooper felt his side should have run away with a bigger result after they beat the 10 men of fellow promotion contenders Blackburn 2-0 at Ewood Park.

The first goal of the game came when Manchester United loanee James Garner slotted past Thomas Kaminski.

Eight minutes into the second half, an uphill battle was made harder when Darragh Lenihan was shown a second yellow card when he lunged in on Jack Colback.

Forest rubber-stamped all three points to move into the Sky Bet Championship play-off places when Brennan Johnson scored a penalty after Sam Surridge was pulled down in the area.

Cooper said: “I thought we more than deserved the win today.

“Second half especially after the 10 men, really we should have run away with it, we could have and should have scored four or five.

“But we did not quite show the composure or the decision-making that we showed for the first goal but we kept getting in.”

Cooper thought his side kept their cool throughout the game despite being being fouled 20 times.

He added: “There were so many fouls on us.

“It was feisty game and I think we did really well to compose ourselves, we could have lost our heads a little bit the way we were treated.”

The Welshman also thought his side turned a corner after beating a side in the Championship promotion places for the first time in two years.

“I threw that on the players yesterday and I’ve seen some of the lads that have been here for two years and think we need to sort that out and they did tonight, but that was a tough game,” he added.

Tony Mowbray thought his players deserved more from the game after watching them miss numerous chances despite playing a vast majority of the second half with a man fewer.

He said: “We missed some amazing chances to score in the game.

“We have to accept it’s not quite going our way at the moment, some of the situations where we had really good chances.

It is now back-to-back defeats for Blackburn, who have failed to score in both games.

“Any team that does well has to suffer and we’re suffering a little bit at the moment,” Mowbray added.

“I think there’s lots of evidence that we’re doing alright, we missed an amazing chance tonight to get in front, we created enough chances to score multiple goals but I’ve got no concern.”

Referee Josh Smith handed out seven cards throughout the game in a physical encounter.

Mowbray said: “I don’t want to talk about the officials tonight, I sit here most weeks and talk about the quality of the officials in the EFL so let’s get on with it.”