The Christmas period over recent years has been far from festive time for Blackburn Rovers and its supporters, our season was effectively killed off in a similarly disastrous period last year, and true to form we have had a complete shocker this year as well, with more point failures than the national rail network. Watching Blackburn over the festive period is about as satisfying as the joke in a Christmas cracker and they only thing that goes bang is our promotion aspirations.
I went to the Reading game, the most exciting thing about that day out was the stop-start clutch pumping traffic jam on the m25 – not often you can say that, sadly I still managed move movement in 15 minutes of stationary traffic on the M25 than our beleaguered central midfield combo appeared to achieve in ninety minutes of playing football, and the warning signs were clear to see even at that game that all was not well. I was a little surprised to hear that Paul Lambert felt we had played well at Reading – I thought we were poor, granted we were beaten by a great goal that the lad would probably miss 90% of the time, but I seriously can’t believe Paul Lambert watched that recording back whilst saying to his staff how well we played and how unfortunate we were, we never really got going, we offered little and threatened even less, I hoped that the players were swinging the lead looking forward to Xmas with family rather than being focused and ready for the match, but it was sadly a situation that was to get worse over the next few games.
Bolton do appear to be a bogey team for us, especially so at home, but for a team coming off the back of a 4-0 defeat, having only won one game all season, with 107 days since they had last won a match and who’s players if the press were to be believed had not been paid for December and could leave by handing in notice in January, you could have forgiven the Bolton players for turning up and giving up, but oh no, credit to them and their professionalism as footballers they turned up, put a shift in and thoroughly got what they deserved. They showed more commitment, passion and spirit in one boot lace than we managed for the whole of our team, they played for each other, the manager, the club and the fans. We didn’t even look bothered or indeed interested until they scored, professional footballers? I think not. How that Blackburn team could have woken up after the day after that game, looked themselves in the bathroom mirror and considered themselves to be professional I have no idea, I would have been ashamed, embarrassed and I wouldn’t have had the cojones to expected to be paid a professionals wage after those two performances.
Whilst people all over the north west (and other areas) were abandoning homes due to flooding, called out to emergencies and having to work through the holidays rather than spend the festive period with loves ones, one would of hoped that our local community driven team would have attempted to bring some respite and cheer back to the festive period with some sort of performance to take minds away from a fairly miserable period, but instead they contrived to manage to make it even more miserable, even the club itself lending Ewood park to Carlisle and giving some of the parking money back to flood related charities, if those players had an ounce of professionalism, decency and cared one jot they would be handing a week’s wages to the local flood related charities as well as they certainly didn’t earn it as a professional footballer.
I have read some fairly angry responses from other fans on social media, with cries for Paul Lamberts head etc, but I am not 100% sure it’s his fault, he certainly hasn’t helped the situation, he arrived, slated the players fitness and training, more or less allegedly accused the former management team as being out of its depth and letting players drag their feet – something that did appear to be the case when we couldn`t play Friday night and Monday night games when we were dead on our feet by half time in the second game, dropping players, substituting players who would normally play full games, then changing the system around to try and coax some sort of reaction from the players, but sadly in an almost Chelsea like two fingered salute the players don’t seem to be playing for him, certainly they perhaps needed a change from nice guy Gary’s style of matey management, but I’m left wondering if Paul hasn’t knee jerked to hard in the opposite direction with a draconian work routine that has left them all sulking and more likely to ignore him?
Certainly whilst Corey Evans has been out of our midfield we have looked a static shambles, but Guthrie and Akpan neither of whom could force their way regularly into a Reading midfield last season seem to be the only options Paul wishes to try, but it’s a midfield that certainly needs some drastic attention, they lack drive, energy, a decent passing ability and any sort of movement into space, in fact I am starting to think that Thora Hird and a Stannah stairlift would get up and down the park quicker. Young Shane Duffy has come in for much criticism despite being presented as a player of the month candidate, whilst being decent defensively poor clearance aside – he sadly has the forward passing ability of a blindfolded donkey, in fact my son has taken to shouting “you’re not Steven Gerrard” every time he tries another box to box long ball that goes straight to the opposition, in fact Shane reminds me of a young lad we had in the local kids team I managed, keen as mustard and really enthusiastic, but once he took his glasses off to start the match he couldn’t pass to anyone more than ten feet away as he couldn`t see them, but we taught him to play the way he was facing and keep it short and simple nothing over 10 feet in fact, no panic no problem.
To have a go at Shane is in my eyes the wrong option, so many times at both Reading and Bolton the ball would come out short, work its way up the wings, both full backs would stop completely once they had passed the ball (I was always told you passed and moved, what happened to that idea) and would not making a forward run for love or money, the players on the wings facing an opposition winger and full back would have to look inside at a central midfield who would be either out of position or completely static and a forward line that seems to think its compulsory to stand next to the defender marking them for fear of being lonely this Christmas. So they would then pass the ball backwards to the full backs who would then be pressured, they would pass inside and one of Grant or Shane (normally Shane) who would then hoof it up the pitch towards the towering figure of Gestede who? oh.. he’s not there, it’s so one tracked, so obvious, so easy to defend against and very 1970 yet it seems to be our one and only attacking idea – not that its particularly Paul Lambert’s we did it under nice guy Gary as well, sadly the one player that we really seem to be missing in our midfield is the one we sold to Fulham, he had forward vision, could pass, move and run! Marshall appears to have got himself rather lost without his foil.
Poor Jordan Rhodes has had so little to work with, he’s either running down lost long balls, trying to play target man (hello?!), trying to force the defence into a mistake or holding the ball up with his back to goal, target man and back to goal Jordan is not particularly competent at, his strengths are facing goal with the ball at his feet or being played in front, watch him in the shooting warm ups, if he’s back to goal he snatches at the shot and the majority go straight at
the keeper, but play it in front of him and he shoots much better? you don’t score as many as he has with your back to goal or trying to control 9 foot high balls lobbed at him, why is this so hard to understand and do something about?
I feel sorry for a couple of the players namely Jordan, Conway, Steele and to some degree Shane but now comes crunch time for Paul Lambert, he will have little / no money to spend and either has to try and break up the nucleus of journeymen signed by nice guy Gary signed, and try to find some cheap/free players that actually want to be professional footballers and play for our club, hoping to achieve something with us and aim towards promotion rather than just being satisfied on current earnings or he has to turn around what’s there which is looking increasingly unlikely as they appear to be treating him just like Chelsea players did with Jose.
The cynic in me thinks the river ribble bursting its banks behind Ewood Park was just a clever ploy to stop us having to play a rampant Middlesbrough side that would have torn us to pieces like a sugar deprived obese child with candy floss at the fair, and we would have been in a much worse position having been mauled by them so some small act of mercy was heaped upon us over the holiday period by storm Desmond and his angry relatives.
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