Valerien Ismael feels Blackburn’s draw with Oxford was two points dropped

Valerien Ismael felt it was two points dropped rather than one gained even as his Blackburn side came from behind in a 1-1 draw at home to fellow strugglers Oxford.

Rovers needed a 78th-minute penalty from captain Todd Cantwell, a half-time substitute, to get level after Ciaron Brown had put Oxford ahead in first-half stoppage time, but Blackburn played the more positive football without being able to test visiting goalkeeper Jamie Cumming often enough.

It leaves Rovers still with only one win at home, and six points from 10 points at Ewood Park, all season, though Ismael is confident that will change as players return from injury.

“When you play at home you want to win for sure,” Ismael said. “In the additional time (in the first half) we concede that goal and it was enough not to win the game.

“We knew in the second half that Todd would come on and it would be better for us. But I just want to keep the positivity.

“The second half mentality, how we wanted to play, you see clearly when our players are coming back from injury it’s completely different, more control, more composure, more creativity…We’re doing the right things, we’re still unbeaten (in three) so there’s a lot of positives we can take from the game.”

Oxford started brighter but once Blackburn got going they were the stronger team and it was against the run of play that the visitors took the lead.

Sean McLoughlin’s poor defensive header from a long ball sparked a train of events which ended with Brown rifling a left-footed strike into the roof of the net – a poor goal from Blackburn’s perspective.

“It’s one win and we are disappointed but the trend and the momentum at the minute looks a little bit more positive,” Ismael added. “We lost a lot of games in the last minute at home which was really frustrating but now we have a kind of consistency with the performance.

“It’s not the result that we want but at least it’s something to build on and now we can think about the next steps.”

Oxford also left Ewood Park thinking they might have had all three points having held the lead so late on, but when Ryoya Miroshita’s header struck the arm of Jack Currie it all changed.

“We’re disappointed,” said assistant coach Mark Sale, standing in for the suspended Gary Rowett. “It was scrappy but I thought as away performances go we actually controlled it and we didn’t look like we were going to concede until a silly bit of not great defending on the goal.

“We’ve not switched off a bit with the first header and given the penalty away. We’re disappointed in the end, although they came after us a little bit and I think we saw the game out quite well…

“Every point is a good point away from home but it does feel like two dropped.”