FA Cup: Gary Bowyer praises strength of his Blackburn squad after their 2-1 win at Charlton
Saturday 3 January 2015 19:20, UK
Blackburn manager Gary Bowyer was full of praise for his squad after their 2-1 FA Cup win at Charlton.
With an injury and illness-hit squad, Bowyer had to make sweeping changes to the team that beat Charlton in the Championship a fortnight ago, and two goals from Chris Taylor secured a 2-1 win at The Valley.
Bowyer said: "It was a great squad performance. We've got seven missing through injury, illness and suspension and it just shows you the value of having a tight-knit squad.
"Taylor has come in and scored two great goals so he'll be the hero.
"The beauty of this is that if we need to make changes people can come in and have a right good go for us like they did here.
"If you look at where we are in the league, everybody above us is making bids to strengthen their squad, but if we have to go with what we've got then it's not a problem."
Taylor gave the visitors the lead after four minutes as he rose to meet Craig Conway's left-wing cross and power a header into the bottom corner.
The game then suffered a 12-minute interruption as the floodlights went out with 29 minutes gone and referee Keith Stroud led the players down the tunnel.
Johann Gudmundsson brought Charlton level 10 minutes after half-time with a brilliant free-kick, before Taylor put Blackburn back in front four minutes later as he smashed home from Chris Brown's cross.
Charlton manager Bob Peeters admitted afterwards that he wants to sign striker Tony Watt, who is best known for his winning goal for Celtic against Barcelona in the Champions League in 2012, from Standard Liege.
"Hopefully Tony Watt will sign this week. He did well last season. He wasn't too happy but he will give you something up front. He has pace and scoring ability," said Peeters.
"We had only 13 players available and our bench was an under-21 bench. If you see the likes that Blackburn had on the bench, they're a strong team, but hopefully we will recover five or six players for the game against Brighton which will make a difference."
