Michael O’Neill confident Blackburn have enough quality to seal survival

Michael O’Neill remains confident he can keep Blackburn in the Championship despite Bristol City ending his winning start as Rovers boss.

The Northern Ireland manager has been brought in to save the club from relegation while remaining in charge of his national side, and started his reign with back-to-back wins over QPR and Preston.

That feelgood factor was punctured at Ewood Park as the Robins came from behind to take all three points, Yuki Ohashi’s early strike overturned by efforts from Emil Riis and Scott Twine.

It completes a rapid run of fixtures since he walked through the door but defeat has not dimmed O’Neill’s optimism.

“I’ve been here nine days and we’ve played three games. At the moment we’ve got six points out of nine, if we keep that pattern going I’ll be more than happy,” he said after ending the evening four points clear of the bottom three.

“It’s difficult in that space of time to get to know the players with games coming so quickly. I’ve not seen them train much, but we’ve got a full week next week which is a bit of an opportunity.

“But we’ve got a good group who are easy to work with and determined to do well. I think there’s enough in that dressing room to get us away from the situation we’re in.

“The signs I’ve seen so far would indicate there’s enough to pull away.”

O’Neill’s side were cowed by the quality of Riis in the first half but reorganised well to dominate the second period, failing only to beat the impressive Radek Vitek, who made a couple of critical saves in the closing stages.

“We’re not going to get out of it by playing scintillating football all of the time, there’ll be moments to play but our attitude and character will get us out of the situation we’re in,” he added.

Victorious boss Gerhard Struber commended his side for stopping O’Neill’s new manager bounce in its tracks with a hard-fought away win that keeps them in the hunt in a play-off race he expects to go all the way to the wire.

“With the play-offs at the moment, nothing is clear. We know this is a race until the last day, I’m 100 per cent convinced on that,” said the Austrian.

“It’s really important we bring the points home and it starts today.

“When you play against a team where the manager is new every single plyer wants to show his best profile and the energy is on a different level. We can see this Blackburn team is changing, the vibe is different, the belief is different.”

“We expected today to be a real challenge, we know their identity and their directness. We needed big engagement to come from behind.”