Blackburn Rovers will use the extended international break to play a behind-closed-doors friendly as they seek to build consistency after an uneven start to the season. The club currently sits 16th in the Championship with nine points from eight games, a position manager Tony Mowbray believes has room for significant improvement.
Mowbray confirmed the plan this week, stating the fixture is designed to give game time to players not on international duty and to intensify training. The break, which runs for three weeks, is a new feature in the EFL calendar this season, replacing a shorter pause earlier in September. While there will be one fewer stoppage the total time without league football remains the same.
Mowbray's training focus
With four players away on international duty, the manager intends to focus heavily on the training pitch with the remaining squad. He stressed the need for a balance, allowing players who have featured heavily in a congested schedule to rest initially. "We've got a couple of weeks to get some hard, serious work into the team because I can't sit here one week and moan that we just haven't done any training in three weeks," Mowbray said.
He outlined that players who have played seven or eight games in a 21-day period deserve a break of three or four days to recover fully. After that, the focus will shift to implementing his tactical ideas. "Literally no training, literally watching videos, literally walking through things. Nobody's allowed to do any running," he added, describing the initial recovery phase.
The need for work is clear from the team's recent form, which reads one win, two draws and two defeats from the last five matches. Their most recent outing was a 2-2 draw at Portsmouth, where goals from Oladapo Afolayan and Ryoya Morishita earned a point. Afolayan is the team's top scorer this season with three goals. You can review the full run of recent results on our fixtures page.
Mowbray's aim is to use the private match and focused training sessions to establish a more reliable pattern of play. The work will culminate in preparation for the return to Championship action at home to Cardiff City on 10 October. Fans can check the latest team news and the full squad ahead of that match on our squad page.
Further reading: lancashiretelegraph.co.uk
