Hughes Summarises Cup Shock

Blackburn Rovers fell to an embarrassing FA Cup exit on Saturday afternoon, going down 4-1 at Ewood Park at the hands of Coventry City.

A small Ewood crowd (of around 15,000) booed the players off the field at the end of the game and manager Mark Hughes feels that we had every right to do so after our defeat to the Championship side.

Hughes said: "The crowd had every right to boo that performance.

"We controlled the first half without really causing them any problems and were a bit unfortunate to go behind but the second half performance was unacceptable from our point of view.

"We made changes at 2-0 but the players don't tune into your game plan and in the end it was quite comprehensive.

"The changes I made shouldn't have made any difference as we had enough quality out there but you have to say were some of the players up for the challenge? Were they hurting enough?

"The second half we were always chasing the game and throwing people forward without any thought or direction and as a consequence kept getting caught on the break.

"Credit to Coventry they were excellent on the day and thoroughly deserved their win because on the day they were better."

Hughes made a few changes to the starting line-up, but even so we SHOULD have had enough quality to have beaten Coventry, but now that we didn't our ONLY route into Europe next season is via the League, our early season form MUST be repeated or we won't manage this, and I don't even want to contemplate the repercussions of not making the UEFA Cup next season.

However, before all is said and done I would like to congratulate Coventry on the win, good luck to them for the remainder of their FA Cup journey.


NOT REGISTERED TO VITAL BLACKBURN? WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR! Register by clicking here.