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Ryan Alebiosu and Tony Mowbray frustrated as Blackburn are denied by late Wolves penalty

Ryan Alebiosu and Tony Mowbray were left frustrated as Blackburn are denied an opening day win by a controversial late Wolves penalty.

Wolverhampton Wanderers had gone ahead after 18 minutes, Marshall Munetsi getting on the end of a through ball from Fer Lopez through the defence, putting the ball past Balazs Toth.

Sean Mcloughlin then had Rovers level 10 minutes later, his first goal in English football, a header past keeper Dan Bentley.

Eidur Gudjohnsen then put Blackburn in front from close range minutes into the second half, then right at the end, Raul Jimenez scored from the penalty spot with a stuttered but confident run up to snatch a draw for Wolves.

Ryan Alebiosu said, as per The Guardian: “We’re frustrated, the boys have done everything to get the three points. The ball has been played and I thought I was outside the box… obviously the decision has gone against us.

“The boys dug deep and we thought we had it. Just the final details with the penalty is frustrating. If we play like that every week we’ll go far in the table.”

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Tony Mowbray told talkSPORT: “We’re obviously disappointed. Having watched the still back, when it hits his hand it looks as if it’s outside the box, the still I’ve just looked at. And I think we’ll go and see Kevin Friend, who is here tonight, who is the assessor. We’ll go and sit with the referee and see what he thought.

‘If it’s in the 93rd minute, you have to be 100 per cent sure. These lads train and work every day, this is their lives, this is what they do for a living and you have to get it right I think.

“And the still I’ve seen looks to me outside the box and yet there you go. He made the call, we have to live with it.

“At 2-2, would we have taken that before the game? I generally thought we could come here and win, but they are a decent side, a good side who play positional football.”

He said to Sky Sports: “Well, having been in the dressing room now and watched the still picture, it looks outside the box to me. The still picture suggests to me it’s outside the box.”

“These lads aren’t stupid, they wouldn’t handle the ball. If it hits him on the hand and it’s away from his body, modern day football I suppose, but it still looks outside the box to me on the still I’ve you’ve seen.”

Asked how are we pleased with the way that your team have played tonight, he replied: “Yeah, alright. I think there’s some we can get better and they have to get better.

“We’ve told them that we have to be more dominant with the ball at times, more of a goal threat. You know, only scored 42 goals last season, it’s not enough. By 30 odd goals it’s not enough. Where we’re going to get them all from? w

“We’ve done lots of work pre-season on trying to hurt teams and putting the balls in the right areas to get people into positions so that we can score goals. Yeah, they brought some of that today. We have to be better of course, but okay.

“Listen, I drove up today, listened to all these radio stations and saw a bit of sky and all the pundits had us in relegation zone or just about in relegation zone.

“It can be a motivation for people I think, know, having been in this league a long time for a lot of years. I think the power of the dressing room is crucial and any motivational tool you can use, it’s important.

“I think we’re going to be fine. think we need to score more goals as I’ve said. Two away today at Wolverhampton, so we’ve got to play Middlesbrough next Saturday at home who I think are probably the best football retention team in the league and we’ll see how we get on, but hopefully we can find a performance level again to match tonight and even surpass it and we can just keep pushing on and enjoying our football.

“You’ve got to enjoy football, you’ve got to love it, you’ve got to want to play every week and come off the pitch finding that inner child I call it, finding the lad when you used to play here under 12s and score six goals every game.

“You have to love football and I think they did tonight, enjoyed it, felt disappointed that. I felt the momentum of the decisions were starting to swing against us little bit and I feel it’s a bit, I shouldn’t say that I don’t think.

“Because I don’t ever think there’s anything untoward, no bias from the referees but it felt, maybe with the crowd and the noise, the excitement, maybe it, I don’t know whether it affects officials, you hope not of course, but it’s really frustrating for us because I didn’t feel they were going to score, I didn’t feel they were creating chances.”

See his interview in full below…

Wolves boss Cesar Peixoto said, as per Sky Sports:

“It’s not the result we wanted, we wanted to win. We were better in the first half, we created a lot of situations but didn’t score. In the second half we suffered a bit more, we conceded the goal.

“After that we played more with heart than with our heads or brain. We lost organisation and it was more difficult after that.

“But the effort of the players was good. We showed big heart to fight until the end. We want to be a team who never gives up, but we have to improve and stay organised.”

Wolves’ Raul Jimenez said, as per Sky Sports:

“It’s amazing to be back, scoring in the first game of the season. It’s not the result we were looking for in our first home game of the new season, so we need to learn from this. All the games are going to be difficult here, no matter who we play against.

“We need to keep going, it’s just the start. I’m going to keep working and going forward to keep improving with the team, to hopefully earn many points and score a lot of goals.”

Wolves boss Cesar Peixoto said, per the club website:

“I wanted the three points all the time. I think in the first half we were the better team, we created the better chances, had more of the ball and attacked more.

“In the second half, when we conceded the goal, I think we started playing more with our hearts than with our heads. We lost some organisation and that made things more difficult for us. Then we had injuries and a lot of things happened during the game.

“But even with one player less, the players showed a big heart and fought until the end, which is what I want. It’s one point, but we were fighting for three points all the time.

“Firstly, we started playing more with our hearts than with our heads. Secondly, we lost some organisation. We didn’t wait for the right triggers to press, win the ball back as quickly as possible and then play in our way. Blackburn also dropped deeper and there was less space between the lines and less space behind their defensive line.

“We tried to switch the ball from one side to the other and put crosses into the box, but we didn’t win enough first balls or second balls. We lost a lot of second balls. I also think we needed to make more fouls and be more aggressive in the duels.

“Because we lost some organisation, we didn’t create as many chances as we did in the first half. But it’s normal at this stage. It’s the first game and not everything is going to be at 100 per cent. We have to analyse the game, watch it back, talk with the players and work hard to improve.

“It’s a big difference. One point is one point. We wanted three, but that point is important for us. The way we scored is important too. We had injuries, we were playing with one player less and a lot of things happened during the game, but the team had the heart to fight until the end and score.

“I think that brings confidence and belief to the team because I want my team to fight until the end and the players never gave up on the game. That’s very important for me. Now we have to analyse the game, work hard and improve for the next one.”

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