Proud day for resilient Blackburn

Blackburn Rovers boss Steve Kean has expressed his pride at his players’ resilience in holding Liverpool to a 1-1 draw on Boxing Day.

The visitors held on to condemn the Reds to their seventh draw of the season and their sixth at Anfield as Kenny Dalglish’s men failed to push on after Maxi Rodriguez’s equaliser.

The Rovers coach – who had seen his team go 1-0 up on the stroke of half-time thanks to a Charlie Adam own goal – was thankful for his team’s luck on occasion, but highlighted the players’ discipline in defence as well.

Kean told BBC Sport: “We were disciplined in defence and created quite a few chances on the break.”

“In the second half, sometimes you need great saves and lucky breaks.”

“I am proud of the lads. I think we showed that if we keep our discipline we can come to places like this and dig out results.”

Blackburn’s effort and graft in defence was evident from the start and Kean admitted he revelled in denying Liverpool all three points.

“I enjoyed it,” Kean said. “We were a little bit disappointed in the way that we started the second half but that side in the first half had defensive organisation spot on.”

“Credit to the players we worked on that a lot, to get a platform where we can win the ball and then start off our counter attacks.”

Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish insisted his side must begin to convert their chances if they are to climb the Premier League table.

“It’s same as after a few other games here. (We’ve done) more than enough to win, (and had) more than enough chances to have won the game.”

“The performance could have been a touch better but no complaints about that. With the opportunities that we created and made no complaints but once again we’ve not converted a good enough ratio of the chances we’ve made.”

“The goalkeeper’s made a fantastic save at the end, apart from a few others as well.”

“Most of the things we do, we do very well and we do it right but a bit of luck, a bit more belief in ourselves and a goalkeeper coming having a nightmare would be helpful.”

“We can’t control that goalkeeper having a nightmare, we can only control ourselves, and if we get them on target it’s up to him to save them and he saved most of them today.”