Mathias: Sloppy Play Cost Us

Blackburn Rovers Assistant manager Ray Mathias was disappointed with the sloppy football shown from Rovers on Wednesday evening that allowed Aston Villa to come out victorious.

Rovers took the lead at Villa Park before falling 2-1 behind, and a late third secured the win before an injury-time strike from Brett Emerton saw the match end 3-2 in Villa's favour, but it was disappointing defending that annoyed Mathias to deny us at least a share of the points.

Mathias said: "Not many teams will come to Villa and play as well as we did. We started off a little bit sloppy but, once we got going, we deserved to be ahead.

"The disappointing thing for us is the way we conceded the first and second goals. For the first goal, we were in command of the situation and paid for some sloppy defending.

"Then the second goal killed us.

"We were still in the game though and could have got back into it at 2-1 but another sloppy pass in the middle of the park cost us the third goal."

Paul Ince on the other hand was taking the positives from another performances that he was pleased with, he added:

"We were comfortable in the first 45 minutes. We got the goal and never looked in any danger. Then we conceded a fortuitous goal from Villa's point of view.

"We had chance after chance in the first half and the second. We are playing some good stuff and the lads have shown they can come to places like Villa and control the game.

"I am encouraged, but try telling that to my players when they've lost the game. We feel we've dropped points against Bolton, Middlesbrough and Villa, and we can't keep doing that."

Personally I'm still happy with how Ince is doing, and think there are more positives than negatives and things are pulling in the right direction, even if results aren't always showing this.


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