Rovers First Half Proved Our Undoing

Blackburn Rovers defeats at the hands of West Ham United at Upton Park are not uncommon but Rovers boss Mark Hughes felt the first half showing proved to be our undoing.

An injury time goal from David Bentley gave Rovers a glimmer of hope of maybe gaining a point (we wouldn’t have deserved!) but the earlier West Ham goals from Teddy Sheringham and Hayden Mullins proved enough to earn the Hammers a much-needed 2-1 victory. Hughes said:

“The second half was much better, but really we lost the game in the first half.

“You can’t win Premier League games by just playing for forty-five minutes.

“It wasn’t our day, first half we didn’t deserve anything, the second half I felt our performance deserved something out of the game but it wasn’t to be.

“But losing the second goal when we did was poor from our point of view because we were totally in command at that stage.

“It is a little bit of concern for us as that is three goals at set-plays that we’ve conceded in three games. So we need to address that.”

Things could and probably should have been different (again I must stress we didn’t deserve it!) as Francis Jeffers had an even later injury time effort (after Bentley’s goal), which could have given Rovers a point.

“I’ve just been told by the TV guys that it should have been a goal kick, I wasn’t aware of that I was more concerned that we didn’t deal with the cross when it came in, that was my main concern, but obviously knowing that makes it even harder to take,” Hughes added when speaking about Mullins’ second and goal for West Ham which came about from a corner which never should have been! West Ham’s Bobby Zamora had the final touch for what should have been a goal kick…

Hughes finished by saying:

“It has been a poor day for us, we’ve lost a game that I felt that if we were more positive in the first half we could have got something out of.

“We’ve had a week that we’d prefer to forget, but now a new week starts and we can look forward to a European game again.”

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