BLUE-EYED BOY’S VIEW
IF ever Rovers needed to take the oft-scorned League Cup seriously, it was this week.
After opening-day humiliation at the hands of Norwich and following four consecutive exits at the hands of lower-league opposition in the tournament it was heartening to see Owen Coyle’s vacuous preseason tub-thumping exposed as so much bluff and bluster on Saturday, pick the side he would probably have been obliged to select had there been a midweek league game rather than a trip to what I still refer to as Field Mill for a relatively undemanding brush with Fourth Division opposition.
Credit to Coyle and that side for comfortably negotiating a task which previous blunderers Kean and Bowyer virtually laid their own mines out for and failed miserably in.
Two more goals for Anthony Stokes, who has made a fine start, and a header from Shane Duffy, who really ought to rack up Colin Hendry-esque double-figure tallies at this level, made light of an uncomfortable few minutes after half-time when the home side exposed recurrent defensive frailities (full-backs who are poor in the air – a pet hate of mine) to briefly suggest that a bad start to the season was about to get a bit worse.
Rovers will go to Wigan on Saturday, followed immediately by another away game at Cardiff in midweek, in far better heart after a win which seemed a million miles away at tea-time three days earlier.
“One team always on the move with precise and inventive passing, the other static and bewildered,” my pal Fred described the 4-1 drubbing after I missed the match to attend a wedding.
A few were surprised but for many of us it was a wholly predictable scenario (so predictable in fact that I had a couple of quid on a 4-1 Norwich win).
We’ve had a couple of tankings away on opening day but that was the worst at home since Sheffield United won 5-1 at Ewood in 1951, another unwanted distinction in a year in which we have already suffered the heaviest loss on our manor for 50 years (the FA Cup debacle against West Ham).
In recent Championship years, Rovers have had a habit of winning a meaningless game or two late on in the campaign to finish in a flattering league position.
I wonder if Coyle had watched the final two wins which tailed last season off on video? Why else would he have gone with a starting XI comprising ten men who contributed to the turgid slog that was the 2015-16 schedule augmented only by a bloke who took part in but contributed very little to the previous one?
Every new season is a fresh start for everyone but surely it would have made more sense to have introduced most of his new signings from the off.
Particularly in central midfield, it’s almost as if all Rovers managers have to abide by a clause which forbids them to address the ongoing problem of a slow-in-thought-anddeed engine room which functions like a pair of drunks attempting to carry four pints apiece across a dancefloor full of couples moving gracefully and in perfect sync and tempo.
Much of the Twitter and other social media vitriol was directed at Hope Akpan who is another in a succession of players who give the impression of traversing Glastonbury in wellies on a particularly wet year while the opposition slalom through like Torvill and Dean, as Norwich did on at least seven or eight occasions as the final scoreline was the footballing equivalent of a declaration so beyond the team going second that you let the wicket-keeper have a chuck.
I don’t wish that kind of concentrated invective on any player. We’ve had it with Keith Andrews and Chris Brown as well as a few who almost deserved it for lack of effort but in the end it only divides fans and reflects badly on our support which was clearly already at its lowest numerically for some years on Saturday.
Coyle looks set to add to the numbers with young striker Gallagher from Southampton whose career needs to get moving forward after a wholly unproductive spell with MK Dons.
He’ll need more than that, and the worry persists that the unforgivable tardiness in presenting new contracts to Marshall and Duffy will see them receive more lucrative offers elsewhere.
Well done to Rovers for marking the very sad passing of 70s players Neil Wilkinson and Russell Coughlin who both died at early ages last week.
Neither was a worldbeater for us but the club did right by them.
To the DW then, where Wigan v Rovers matches are seldom void of talking points or goals. Let’s hope it’s more of a Stephen Reid day than a Paul Ince one.