Riza pre-Blackburn Rovers | The boys will be ready
Omer Riza spoke to the press ahead of our Sky Bet Championship clash with Blackburn Rovers on Saturday afternoon.
Our opponents head into the fixture currently sitting 10th in the second tier table.
"They play good football, quite similar to us in respect of how they try to create certain problems for the opposition, they create a box in midfield, but they do it differently," Omer began. "They’ve got a good attacking threat, but their form hasn’t been great as well, so it will be an interesting game.
"They come to us, and they'll want to try and get a result to get them out of the problem they’re in, and we want to win, so I suppose it will make for a good, attacking game, because they like to attack and we like to attack. Hopefully, we come out at the end of it on top.
"Our form has been good at home - I want it to be good away as well, which I think is important to push up the table and get to where we want to get to. It’s been good, and hopefully that can continue. The boys have got the bit between their teeth after yesterday’s game. We had a brief chat and they’ll be ready to go on Saturday."
City will be aiming to bounce back from a narrow defeat to Luton Town in midweek, our only loss in the last seven matches.
Omer continued: “I think the boys are a little bit disappointed. We didn’t play like we’ve played previously over the last three or four games, but we went there with the intention of winning the game, which is something in itself, that we’re going to a place like Luton, who were in the Premier League last year, to win the game.
"I’m a little bit deflated that we lost the game. We created opportunities, our playing out of the back and through the thirds against a man-for-man side, who are quite aggressive with that, I think the boys showed real bravery and intensity to do that. That for me is progression from where we started and where we’ve come from.
“I was really pleased with that because there were times when we opened them up and got on the backline really well. We just didn’t quite show the quality of the past games and it didn’t quite click for the final pass to be able to hurt them.
"The goal that came from the corner was disappointing. In those positions, we have to block and stop people running into those areas and we didn’t do that. It was costly, but overall I was happy with the performance. I think it needs to be better, but our style of play and the way we want to play, it was there."
Omer concluded by giving an injury update on his squad ahead of this weekend's fixture.
"Alex Robertson will be back in the squad on Saturday. Joe Ralls probably could have been back, but we said we’d leave him until after the international break to get him ready. Kion Etete still needs that period of time to come back into the squad. Aaron Ramsey is a bit longer, Ryotaro Tsunoda has been training with the First Team now, but needs time to get in and around the First Team squad yet.
"It was good to see Kion get some time with the U21s; he got 45 minutes and a goal, which is good for him after such a long time out. We’ll see how he progresses.
"We think Isaak Davies will be ready in or after January. He’s had a setback and he’s working hard in the gym now. He’s a focused lad, so he’ll come through that and he’ll be a good asset when he’s back."