Jon Dahl Tomasson is seeing plenty of things he likes from his side who he believes have made great strides over the course of the season.
The downfall has been the lack of goals, with only seven teams in the division having scored fewer, and that theme continued in the draw with Luton Town.
While creating chances was a key reason for that earlier in the calendar year, Rovers’ run of eight without a win, and only four goals scored, has actually come during a period when they have made more goalscoring opportunities than at any stage of the season.
Despite the squad being stretched by injury, Tomasson remains positive about his side’s performances and stuck with the same XI from the defeat to Burnley against Luton.
He saw his side dominate for the opening 45 minutes, but not take their chances, and they were on the back foot when Tom Lockyer headed in the opener for the visitors early in the second half.
It wasn’t until the closing stages that Rovers found a way through, with the point enough to take their fate down to the final day.
“They are playing very good football, with control, creating chances, I think we created four good opportunities in the first half which is positive at this late stage,” the Rovers head coach said.
“If you think about the age of the group, the stress, because they haven’t been used to this situation, the lads are coping extremely well with a new situation.
“I am frustrated but proud of the energy the team has.
“The belief they play with, the way we play football.
“We have come far and played great football and created opportunities.
“All the credit to the lads.
“We deserved more but we have to put it in the goal.
“It says a lot about this team that we want to attack and create chances and we’re playing very offensively.”
Hayden Carter was the unlikely scorer of Rovers’ goal, his first for the club, heading in a Sorba Thomas corner with four minutes remaining.
There was a wry smile from Tomasson that given Rovers’ struggles in attack it was left up to a defender in Carter to find the finishing touch, which capped an excellent run of form for the centre half.
“We are not scoring goals and you need to score goals to win games,” Tomasson added.
“If you should complain about anything it’s that we’ve not been able to score goals.
“It was a brilliant header, a defender who scores the goal, but a brilliant goal and I’m happy for Hayden.
“The team have developed a lot, and Hayden is one of them.
“Defensively and on the ball, I think he’s showing all the right things, doing all the right things more or less every week and he’s done that for a while.
“All credit to the boy.”
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