Where Now?

I have not done a blog for almost a year now, what has changed since then?

In came Shebby Singh with the promises of the world, after all he is our Global Advisor, whatever that entails. One of his first priorities was to bring the fans back on board with his infamous meeting with the fans. He told us what we wanted to hear that Kean, should he lose 3 straight games would be sacked, if he failed to reach a certain tally of points from a number of games he would be sacked. Not to mention calling MGP a pensioner.

Then only a day later Singh had to retract most of what he said, sending signals that he didn't hold the key to the removal of Kean and infact the meeting was in my opinion a farce as he was just telling us what we wanted to hear. The day of the retraction was the beginning of another Venky's foul up, Singh was and still is not the man for Rovers. Full of hot air and stupid remarks, once again for Blackburn we became a joke for the footballing world to see.

Looking back now, when Kean didn't hit the points target set he at last departed. Lets be honest, the points that we had we were lucky to have especially after some really poor displays. We all thought with the arrival of Murphy, Etuhu, Rhodes, CKR, some Portuguese players that we had a team that should be in the hunt for automatic promotion.

Up stepped Singh, on the search for a new manager.
Names in the media and betting sites were being thrown around like confetti. Names like Holloway, Redknapp, Hughes, OGS, Hitzfeld,Schuster, McCarthy plus Ex Rovers players such as Shearer, Sherwood, Hill, BMK and even Flitcroft.
Obviously due to Singh n Co keeping tight lipped for most part of the managerial appointment most of the names above were just tossed into the hat, but the fans mostly agreed that we needed someone with experience to give the team a lift and a complete change of atmosphere. So when Singh looked to ask Fulham to speak to Billy McKinlay, Singh was blasted by the fans as this was a definate no go.

Singh recognised this and pulled out of any talks. We all thought this was a good sign and we would go on and appoint a manager of decent experience, a manager who would turn the fortune around and bring back the fans to a less than half full Ewood.

The selection for the manager started dragging on and time was ebbing away, we thought we would lose momentum with Black in charge on a temporary basis. Fans started calling for the manager to be put into place and quickly. At this time Coyle had gone from Bolton, Howe had gone from Burnley and Jewell's time at Ipswich was almost over. This meant more clubs were out trying to secure the "best" manager for their team.

Out of nowhere or should I say Norway a story broke the Henning Berg was the favourite for the job and Norway TV announced that Berg was coming over to Blackburn to sign the dotted line. I for one was left bemused, no chance that this could happen, surely it was just another media made up story, or I hoped so. Surely Singh wouldn't go for Berg, would he? The selection committee were all wanting different people to take charge. Holloway for me was the better choice, his football is good to watch, he has experience of bringing a team from the Championship to the Premiership, so for me ticked two of the must have boxes.

Oh dear Singh had got his way, in came Berg with limited managerial experience in Norway. Don't get me wrong I am not having a go at Henning, I thought he was a fantastic steady player for us, a rock in the defence.
After witnessing most of his matches in charge I am at a complete loss. We are playing worse now than we were under Kean, we seem to have one plan only and if that doesn't work then stick to it as it may come good. Granted, Berg hasn't had much time in charge but his team selections are strange, his tactics are strange, he is bald ..... you can see where this is going.

Against Cardiff was the low point so far this season, yes we lost to Bolton, drew against Burnley (which we were lucky to survive) but the performance apart from ten minutes in the second half was simply clueless, spineless and devoid of any ideas. We have a fantastic striker in Rhodes, but we play him upfront on his own, usually isolated. He is not a target man, he is a poacher who needs service to get the goals. We have two Centre Half's Hanley and Dann who apart from two maybe three games have been awful as a partnership, Givet must be wondering what he has to do to get a sniff. Vukcevic, Rochina and CKR to name a few players are sitting on the bench while the likes of Etuhu, Ms Olsson, Lowe and Formica all start games. Some would say Formica is playing well, which to be fair he has his patches but I have never thought much of him as a player. He is not a wide man, which is where we play him. Lowe unfortunately lookes devoid of confidence, we know he is a better player than what he is showing us.

Will we get promoted this season?
Not a chance on the showing so far into the season, we will be lucky not to keep slipping down the table and finish lower mid table.

January, bring in new players?
We need to sell before we buy, if I was the manager I would look to offload: Dann, Formica, Robinson, MGP even the ever missing Bruno. Problem is how much do you think we would raise? Answer is not a lot.

Change of manager?
Can't see this happening, after all this is not Henning Berg's fault, he applied for the job, he got it. You have to look at the person who selected him. Shebby Singh, surely his job should be under scrutiny. He wants the fans to like him, well if results like this carry on the fans would love him to go!!

In summary in my opinion we should have gone for Holloway and give him what he wanted. He generates excitement both on and off the pitch. The fans would have come back to Ewood to watch his brand of football. The feel around Ewood is one of "has anything really changed?" it feels like the days of Kean already. We can't all start shouting for Berg to go, he is a man of his word. Automatic promotion or anything else is a failure. So if results carry on like this, I hope he will realise he is not the man from the job and walk away. Berg doesn't inspire me as a manager and you can see that he doesn't inspire the players either. To many players just simply wandering around a field then collecting a substantial pay cheque every month.

The Turning Point?

Amongst all the rumours surrounding our beloved Rovers, the past few weeks have been nothing short of a roller coaster.

Defeats at home against WBA & Bolton left us on the bottom of the table. Many thought the Bolton loss would have brought Kean's managerial appointment to an end. This was not the case, Rovers fans voiced their disapproval during the Bolton game going two down in the game, the dissent continued throughout the match, even though Rovers managed to pull one back.

Kean remained defiant and to the Blackburn squad short of confidence into what looked like two tricky ties at Anfield and Old Trafford. To be honest I thought we wouldn't pick up a single point from these two games. How wrong was I and about 99.9% of the Rovers fans. A fantastic defencive display at Anfield and heroics by Bunn and Henley saw Rovers pick up a point. What happened at Old Trafford proved that Rovers still have a place in the Premiership. Much of the press put the Rovers win down to a weakened United side and not to the sterling effort of a United Rovers team. A fantastic game resulted in three points in a brilliant 3-2 victory and may I add that we probably had more "injuries" than United did.

The following game was at home against a tough you know what you get with Stoke team. Everybody were excited about this fixture after the two previous games, but what happened next was a disappointment, getting beat 2-1, with that Crouch guy again.

A FA cup tie at Newcastle was a distraction in our league commitments and too be honest is anyone bothered that we are out of this competition? We lost after leading at half time, a familiar story this season.

Saturday 14 January - The Turning Point?

Me and my son turned up at the Brown Cow ready to go on a protest march against Venky's. The mood was good, the weather cold but sunny. The march started to Ewood and only until you see the film footage did I realise that there were hundreds of people, especially when joined by the Havelock pub. I asked a policeman and he stated that there were well over 800 people on the demonstration march. As per normal the protest was vocal and went off without a glitch after fantastic organisation from the organisers.

The Fulham game started with news Samba was missing from the squad after his absence from Friday's training. Apparently ill.

Looking at the starting line up, it was very good to see Olsson back at left back, Givet back at Centre Half (his best position by far) Hoilett up front somewhere. Again Kean went for a 4-5-1 formation with both Nzonzi and Petrovic in Centre Midfield along with Dunn in front providing the spear head.

With a scruffy looking match in progress a Hulk Hogan styled high boot from the Yak saw him receive his first red card in 9 seasons in English football. Although his foot was raised, did he go for Murphy or was he merely just late? I thought the latter but rules are rules and had to go, although after watching quite a lot of football matches lately and there have been a lot worse tackles out there and not even being given as free kicks.

With Yakubu off the field everyone wondered what Kean would do and what happened next just may save Steve Kean and his career at Rovers. To be fair his more recent substitutions in previous games have been nothing short of baffling. This time he called it absolutely perfect, off came Petrovic on came Goodwillie. Before I continue, I've not been a fan of Petrovic until now, I thought his 25 minute spell was his best spell so far in a Rovers shirt.

As soon as this substitution was made the noise level inside Ewood raised, the players responded to this and put in the performance of the season so far. I would actually say better than the Arsenal game and even better than the win at Old Trafford. The crowd were as one, the team were as one, Blackburn Rovers how we used to know it were at one. Every player on the pitch earned their pay with their hard work and endeavour. Yes and the manager Steve Kean earned his pay packet also, he recognised when Dunn was out on his feet and brought on Formica, the latter scoring Rovers third after starting and finishing the move after sublime pass from the faultless Nzonzi. Fulham pressed but with Hoilett now in a holding position in front of Olsson and Pederson the same in front of Lowe restricted the wide play of Fulham who at times over ran the lines with great success.

After the final whistle another thing happened from Steve Kean, he recognised for once the supporters efforts to get behind the team and mentioned this a number of times in all his interviews. Has Kean changed his tune to a more open crowd pleasing one?

Ok this is only one game, but everything about it felt right, it felt like the Rovers of old, giving everything on and off the pitch as I said before as one.

Is the pressure still on Kean? Absolutely, he needs to build on the new found spirit in the team and especially on the terraces, give the fans  and yes we will support him.

QPRDann to a Premiership team in January and maybe bring in a player or two whether permanent or on loan with the money. I don't think we would miss Dann that much to be fair has he has never had a run in the team due to injuries. On top of this the emergence of Grant Hanley at Centre Half (after a dodgy start to the season) he has been nothing short of a fairy tale story. He almost is an automatic pick at Centre Half now.

Salgado and Roberts by the look of it have played their last games for Rovers and will leave the club shortly, this has been a messy affair with so called injuries being mentioned from Kean, although we know this isn't the case. Has Kean been told by Venky's to say this? I can't answer that. Only Kean can.

I get the feeling that Kean is starting to come to terms with the fans and is giving us a little bit of what we want to hear, I feel even he is becoming tired of Venky's antics. I now think he is learning from his mistakes he has made previously but at the same time being careful what he says so not to upset the so called owners.

I'm not a Kean fan, I have never claimed to be. I think with our support he can improve though. He still needs more than that, another new Assistant Manager on the horizon, please let whoever it is have experience and is a general great help to Steve and to Rovers.

At the moment our fight is against Venky's we need answers and we need answers fast.