Tyrhys Dolan: Blackburn Rovers winger credits improvement to coming off social media

Tyrhys Dolan has scored once and provided two assists in his past two games for Blackburn Rovers

Blackburn Rovers winger Tyrhys Dolan says coming off social media has enabled him to boost his mental health as well as his form on the pitch.

The 21-year-old had a slow start to the season and struggled with the criticism he was receiving on social media.

Since deleting his X, formerly known as Twitter, account he scored his first goal of the season in their win at QPR.

"I'm just happy now that I'm in a more positive position," Dolan told BBC Radio Lancashire.

"I deleted my Twitter account because there was a lot of negativity on there and I thought, if I remove it and I can't see it, then it can help me.

"And it did, I didn't really see anything. I just thought I'd stay away from it and work on myself to get back to where I want to be.

"I don't want to fix something that's not broken, I don't think I'll ever go back on it. My main thing is my football, family and friends. If I don't need to be on there, I won't go on it."

Seeing the volume of negative posts come in based on his performances earlier in the season began to take its toll on Dolan, who continued to be selected by manager Jon Dahl Tomasson.

"I think they feel like because there's so many of them [posts], they feel like their one won't hurt. But it affects you and makes you feel like you're out in the cold a bit," he continued.

"When I stepped out on to the pitch, there's thousands of fans but you just feel alone. You don't hear your name being sung and you feel quite alone.

"But the team have been great to me, and the manager. I said to him I'd been starting a lot but not really playing my best and I wanted to repay the favour but I wasn't really doing that."