It’s cracker Dack time
TONY MOWBRAY knows he is going to face a massive battle to keep Bradley Dack – but he wants him to be part of his Premier League master plan.
Dack grabbed his sixth of the season to underline his status as one of the Championship’s most wanted strikers and piled more pressure on Stoke manager Gary Rowett.
It helped move Rovers to the fringes of the play-offs places – but they had to rely on Saido Berahino’s late penalty miss to seal their second away win of season.
The play-off positions are something Mowbray (above) firmly believes is something Rovers should be aiming for this season – but he has asked Dack to be patient and buy into his longer-term plans for the club.
Rovers turned down West Bromwich Albion’s bids for Dack in the summer and Mowbray knows the former Gillingham striker is ambitious to prove himself at the highest level.
“He has a special combination with Danny Graham and he scores goals. He’s not a No.10 who just wants to float in behind,” said Mowbray. “He wants to get in the box and score.
“He is helping us become a club on the up. That’s what we want.
“I hope in three transfer windows we are winning games regularly in this division and challenging for the top six. I will be disappointed if we are not.”
When Dack missed the chance to give Rovers a 4-0 lead, hitting the post after Jack Butland saved his first effort, Mowbray could never have thought it may have been a costly miss.
But substitute Berahino scrambled home fellow sub Peter Crouch’s knock down and then set up Tom Ince for a second.
Another Berahino cross saw Crouch fail to find the target from inside the six-yard box before the striker smashed his spotkick against the bar, after he had been fouled by Darragh Lenihan.
First-choice penalty taker Benik Afobe had been subbed so Berahino grabbed the ball, but Rowett said: “If you grab the ball you have to score the penalty.
“But that was not really the problem. Defensively we are too soft. We have conceded 16 goals this season and 14 of them have been our mistakes.”
Dack was given too much time in the area to guide a low shot beyond Butland from 10 yards for the opener, after Richie Smallwood’s pass deflected to him.
Then Graham exposed Ryan Shawcross to beat a suicidal offside trap and the game looked over when Dack set up Harrison Reed for his first for the club – before the madness of the last 10 minutes.