Blackburn disappointed after goalless draw with Coventry

Posted Sunday, April 28, 2024 by PA

Keith Downing admitted Blackburn missed a great opportunity to secure Championship safety after drawing 0-0 with 10-man Coventry.

Blackburn’s assistant coach was speaking because John Eustace was sent to the stands in the second half for pushing Coventry’s Kasey Palmer.

After last week’s defeat to Sheffield Wednesday, Rovers certainly got a reaction and were unlucky not to win the game.

They will look at Sammie Szmodics’ early miss and, after Liam Kitching was sent off in the second half for hauling down Sam Gallagher, Rovers missed further chances through Tyrhys Dolan who struck the woodwork and several other players.

They could not force a winner and may need to get something out of a final day visit to promoted Leicester to seal survival.

Rovers have won one in the last 12 at home and, after Plymouth, Birmingham and Huddersfield all failed to win, Downing said the players were downbeat.

“I’m not going to lie to you, people have come in disappointed,” he said.

“They knew there weas a chance there to win the game but when you take a step back, it’s about the performance and you can only control that and that’s what we’ve got to look at this week.

“We’ll look at the opportunities that we had, we will work on it. We’ve just got to make sure that we’re positive because the performance was good.

“Coventry, I don’t know whether they were underestimated coming off the back of the week they’ve had, but they still carry a threat and they’re a good team. We restricted them for an hour to very few chances.”

“Overall (we’re) disappointed because obviously 30 attempts on goal and (we) couldn’t get that final touch which was elusive all afternoon.

“Credit to Coventry as well, there were 10 blocks in that, they put their bodies on the line. But we just needed that quality in the final third.”

Coventry’s play-off hopes are now officially over after a fourth successive game without victory in the league.

They have had a punishing week, physically and emotionally after FA Cup heartbreak last Sunday and losing to Hull on Wednesday.

Other than Liam Kelly hitting the post, they offered little but Mark Robins was pleased with the clean sheet.

He said: “I think with tired legs coming into it, the last thing you want is to go a man down.

“Unfortunately that’s what happened. We made some changes and one or two players ended up coming off.

“They needed a bit of a breather and for us it was a little bit flat, for obvious reasons. So from our point of view, to get a clean sheet is pleasing so for us now we’ve got to recover and go again on Tuesday.

“The game for us, we gave everything we possibly could do. There were some really good passages of play and we had probably one of the best moments of the game that hit the post and stayed out. But apart from that, not a great deal in it.

“Blackburn had plenty of the ball and they looked nervy but we couldn’t capitalise. We didn’t have the energy or the quality at times. We had a little bit of a lull in terms of the game but to get a clean sheet is what we needed.”