Tony Mowbray pointed to his team’s ‘strength of character’ after Blackburn came from behind to deservedly beat Sheffield United 3-1 in the Sky Bet Championship.
Smarting from a club record home defeat to Fulham on Wednesday, Rovers made the worst possible start, conceding in the second minute through Rhian Brewster’s stunning volley – his first goal for the club.
However, Blackburn fought back impressively to overpower the Blades with something to spare.
Reda Khadra’s first goal for the club restored parity before half-time and after the break, the hosts hammered home their superiority through Ben Brereton Diaz’s close range finish – his 13th of a productive season – and Ian Poveda’s first Rovers goal in the 70th minute.
Blackburn have won three of their last four games and Mowbray was quick to mention his side’s character and the support they achieved from the stands.
He said: “We talked about getting off to a good start and making sure we were still in the game after 20 minutes.
“Obviously (that) went down well because we found ourselves one down after 80 seconds.
“I thought they reacted extremely well. It’s no surprise to me, that’s what they do and I’ve been saying that.
“We all had to cope with the game midweek but I think it showed great strength of character that this team has, after the start we had today, to be able to come back and still together and find a way to win.
“The intention for our team was to be aggressive today and to play as we do off transition and try and affect them.
“I think we could have scored a lot more goals than we did. Great credit to them.
“I need to mention the support today because I think they were with the team, even when we went 1-0 down.
“There wasn’t booing, there was total support for the team and I think that had an effect on the way we reacted and ultimately got the result.”
The Blades drop to 19th after a third defeat in five on the road, and the only two teams they have defeated away are in the bottom three.
It is a concern and boss Slavisa Jokanovic said the latest match was his side’s poorest performance of the season.
He said: “The performance was poor. We started the game very well, scored the goal. Maybe after the goal we had a problem with intensity, we made some unforced mistakes and brought them into our box.
“Second half, it’s simple. We conceded the goal after the offensive transition, and after unforced mistakes, even after the set pieces when they started running, we didn’t have enough speed, power, weren’t solid and they found a lot of situations where they could score goals.
“Of course, we created some chances. Billy (Sharp) missed one at the start of the second half. We weren’t clinical in a few situations in the second half but I enjoyed nothing in the game. They were more solid, we weren’t comfortable with the ball.
“Even the chances we created, they were more dangerous than us. They scored three, they could have scored more.
“In total, we don’t deserve anything other than this defeat. Today was the worst game that we have played.”
