Red-hot Chilean to rescue for Mowbray
3 ..1
THAT man Ben Brereton Diaz led Blackburn’s fight back to respectability after the worst possible start at Ewood Park.
The Chile striker scored his 13th goal of the season then made one for Ian Poveda, with Reda Khadra initially rubbing out Sheffield United’s opener whch came after just 78 seconds.
That in itself was memorable, in that it was the first league goal for big-bucks signing Rhian Brewster, the former Liverpool striker netting superbly after an astonishing run of 35 games without one.
At that point it looked like Blackburn’s horror story might continue after their 7-0 midweek home defeat to Fulham.
But they answered boss Tony Mowbray’s call to “stand up as warriors and fighters” as they mounted a spirited Rovers return.
Mowbray said: “Brereton Diaz was magnificent. He twisted and turned players that were in the Premier League last season and he should have had a hat-trick at least. Now he’s off to South America again to play for Chile. “That’s his life now. “You could see the reaction was there from our midweek defeat and I played a lot of youthful guys too. They showed there is fight at this club.”
Blades boss Slavisa Jokanovic said: “Our performance was poor, especially after such a good start.
“There was a problem dealing with Blackburn’s intensity and we made mistakes for their goals.”
BLACKBURN: Kaminski 6; Nyambe 7, Lenihan 6, Wharton 6, Edun 6; Travis 6, Davenport 7 (Rothwell 78th), Buckley 6; Poveda 8 (Butterworth 90th), Khadra 7 (Dolan (67th) 6), Brereton Diaz 8
SHEFFIELD UTD: Olsen 6; Bogle 6 (Baldock 80th), Basham 6, Egan 6, Stevens
6; Norwood 7, Fleck 6 (Ndiaye (64th) 6), Brewster 7 (Mousset (64th) 6), Gibbs-White
6, Osborne 7; Sharp 6
STAR MAN: Ben Brereton Diaz
REF: O Langford
have controlled games here
derby was surely as ne before over the previous
e scored from Kyle Walker’s en Joao Cancelo returned k, Bailly sliced his clearance on Jadon Sancho, Alex Telles and Donny van de Beek – to absolutely no effect.
Foden hit the post, John Stones’ shot on the turn flew wide and De Bruyne sliced a close-range volley into the fans behind De Gea’s goal as City spent 45 minutes forcing United to chase shadows.
“This was a big step backwards,” said Solskjaer. “You never like losing, but when you lose against a good team you want to see a better Manchester United than that.
“When you concede the first goal as early as we did, even in an unfortunate way, it makes the game a lot more difficult.
“But we needed to be a lot more front-foot aggressive. “City played well. They don’t give you opportunities to win the ball off them, so some praise must go to them.
“But we were not at our level and our standards need to be raised.
“I wanted to see us get to them and make it a proper derby game. You want some tackles going in.
“Coming into half-time at 1-0 down, you think you might have a chance, but then the second goal went in.”