Valerien Ismael reveals Blackburn’s win at Bristol City came at ‘big price’

Head coach Valerien Ismael admitted Blackburn’s hard-earned 1-0 win at Bristol City came at a heavy price with injuries to two players and another facing suspension.

The only goal came deep into eight minutes of first-half stoppage time when Ryoya Morishita got behind City’s defence on the right and crossed low for Yuki Ohashi to fire home.

But Rovers skipper Scott Wharton and goalkeeper Balazs Toth suffered worrying injuries while Sondre Tronstad picked up a fifth yellow card of the season and incurs a one-match ban.

Ismael said: “We paid a big price for the win, Scott with his ankle and Balazs with his knee. Neither injury looks good at the moment but we need to assess them to have further clarity.

“We saw two faces of the team tonight. In the first half we controlled the game and played good football. In the second we had to fight but they didn’t create a big chance.

“On top of the win at Leicester, it was another really solid away performance.”

Ismael was angry City declined to return the ball to his side after Toth had thrown it out of play to get treatment on the injury that saw him replaced by Aynsley Pears late on.

He added: “That was a disgrace. It is not the sort of thing you want to see in a game. Everyone wants to win but sometimes fair play has to come first.”

City did not force a single save from either of Blackburn’s goalkeepers as they failed to rebound from the heavy defeat at Stoke on Saturday.

They also suffered injuries with Neto Borges forced off in the first half and substitute Mark Sykes suffering a nasty cut in the closing stages.

Boss Gerhard Struber said: “We already had injury problems, with Rob Atkinson likely to be out until Christmas, but I don’t want to moan because we have to deal with the situation and tonight we feel a big frustration.

“We wanted to bounce back from the Stoke result with 22,000 people in our ground and have not done that.

“In the second half, the boys showed the resilience to do it but our play was sometimes too complicated and it was a painful result.

“Mark Sykes is on the way to hospital with a deep cut to his calf. Neto Borges was smart to come off when he felt a tightness in his calf so hopefully it will not prove to serious.”

In response to Ismael’s criticism, Struber added: “Normally we would have been in a fair play mode in that situation.

“But so many of their players were going down to put time on the watch that I can understand why my team acted as they did.”