‘JUST MAGIC’ FOR JOHNSON’S BOYS
PROUD Blackburn firstteam coach Damien Johnson saluted an ‘outstanding’ performance after they beat Stoke to move away from relegation trouble.
Rovers went into the game with the worst form in the Championship which has resulted in Jon Dahl Tomasson leaving his role, with John Eustace now in the hot seat.
Johnson and fellow firstteam coach David Lowe took the team for the game, with Eustace coming into the dugout in the second half, and the new boss will have enjoyed the performance as they raced into a three-goal first-half lead to shell-shock their opponents.
And Johnson praised Blackburn’s players for responding to the “difficult” last few days.
He said: “I’m not going to lie, it feels good. It’s been a difficult couple of days.
“Great credit to the players. It’s not easy for them, but I thought they were outstanding today. Their concentration, their application, how they went about it, togetherness they showed as you could see towards the end, was superb, so great credit to them.
“They did lots of good things. I think we showed two sides of the game today.
“We needed the fans today, thankfully they got right behind us and we managed to get three points, which was the most important thing.
“We knew we’d find space on transition, so there was an element of allowing Stoke to come onto us. I think at times in the game, we could have looked after the ball better, but when you’ve had a run of results like this, the important thing is you get three points.”
Tyrhys Dolan gave the new era lift-off in the seventh minute, but the architect was Callum Brittain, whose sumptuous firsttime cross put the chance on a plate for him to slot home from six yards at the far post.
Stoke failed to learn their lesson and were further behind in the 20th minute after Brittain was again given time to superbly cross and Ryan Hedges nodded across goal for Sammie Szmodics to thump his header into the roof of the net.
The away supporters were irate after Rovers scored a simple third in the 37th minute when a long ball was flicked on, sending Dolan racing clear on the right with just Daniel Iversen to beat, and he made no mistake, burying his shot into the left corner.
Stoke had hope two minutes later when Bae Jun-Ho’s flickon found Niall Ennis, who showed excellent composure to step inside his man in the area and find the left corner.
It gave the visitors some impetus and they carved out a golden opportunity to reduce the deficit further just after the break when Brittain hauled down Andre Vidigal in the area.
Johnson stepped up to take the penalty, but Aynsley Pears guessed the right way and made the save.
The visitors were in the ascendency and Ben Wilmot shot straight at Pears, but Blackburn displayed defensive solidity that has been missing to expertly see the game, much to the relief of the home support.