Mowbray hoping to blood Middlesbrough youngsters

05 March 2011 10:00
TONY Mowbray is hoping to guide Middlesbrough to Championship safety as quickly as possible - so he can use the final weeks of the season to blood more of the club's youngsters.[LNB] Having edged another point clear of Scunthorpe United on Tuesday, Boro could open up a nine-point gap to the bottom three if they win at Reading this afternoon.[LNB] That would remove much of the pressure that has built in the last three or four months, and enable Mowbray to be more experimental with his starting line-ups in the final stages of the campaign.[LNB] Connor Ripley and Richie Smallwood were unused substitutes on Tuesday, while Cameron Park and Bruno Pilatos have both been named in senior squads this term.[LNB] "There are young players that I want to test because you never really know how they're going to manage until you put them in," said Mowbray.[LNB] "It's much easier to do that at the end of the season if you're in a position where the games have less on them.[LNB] "You actually benefit as a side, because they're desperate to play and prove themselves so there's no end-of-season feel about your team. You have a team bursting out of its skin to show you how good they could be."Clearly it's a balancing act, because if you're playing against a team that is going for promotion or fighting against relegation and you're playing three or four young kids, is it fair to the teams around you"Hopefully, that's something we'll have to think about in a few games' time if we achieve our first priority, which is obviously to get ourselves safe."[LNB] A win at the Madejski Stadium would move Boro closer to that objective, but if Mowbray's side are to complete the double over Reading, they will have to cut out their damaging propensity to concede costly late goals.[LNB] Dele Adebola's stoppage-time strike on Tuesday was the sixth goal Boro have conceded beyond the 90-minute mark this season, and concessions in the final five minutes of a game have now cost the Teessiders 11 points this season.[LNB] "There are a lot of games where we've done that," conceded Mowbray. "It's not something we just brush under the carpet and forget about, we talk about it as a group.[LNB] "I think the overriding factor is that we've only been one goal up going into the last minute. That means teams are gambling trying to win, and in a lot of situations, we've suffered from wide free-kicks where our opponents have felt able to send their tall centre-halves up. They've managed to keep the ball in and around our box as they've gambled to try to get a late goal.[LNB] "I don't think it's something that becomes a major issue in our lives. If you look at the Forest game, we did an awful lot of things right and we have to remember that and move forward."[LNB]

Source: Northern_Echo