Hughes was delighted with McEveley

MARK Hughes was rightly delighted with the way his team played against Liverpool this evening.

The manager made a brave decision to bring in Johansson and McEveley at the back and Jay Bothroyd up front, and he was fully vindicated as all three excelled in an improved team performance.

"I thought we were excellent from start to finish," said Mark Hughes on Radio Rovers after the game, "obviously we are disappointed not to get all three points. Young Jay has learnt a harsh lesson and I'm sure he'll never do that again in his whole career, but he showed a lot character, he stuck at it and played a big part in us getting the 2-2 result.

"I thought our general play and the way we went about our job today was fantastic.

"It was important that we had different options, so I brought Jay (Bothroyd) in, he's been working hard in training so he deserved his chance and to be fair to him he took it.

"He and many others put in a good nights work. It is important now that the players understand thats the level we need to be at every week.

"I thought Nissa took to his task well, it is important that we get a defensive base and we had that tonight, we looked a lot stronger, physically we were at it all over the field, we didn't give them time to settle and I think - certainly physically - we were on top until they got their second goal.

"The fans got behind us and drove us on, and I thought they were excellent.

"That was the level of performance I was looking for, we've come out tonight and made a statement," added the Rovers boss.

Rovers World subscribers can see all the post match reaction and highlights on Monday's edition.

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