Bristol battering restarts tremors
BLUE-EYED BOY’S BLACKBURN VIEW
FIRST half good, second half absolutely bobbins – as a hybrid Sven Goran Sidebottom might have said.
Rovers conceding four goals in a game for the first time in two and a bit years, that horrendous opening-day at home to Norwich the previous occasion, was not quite a seismic shock as a one-off but few fans won’t have experienced mild tremors at the comprehensive nature of the defeat to one of the Championship’s less fancied outfits.
The first taste of legal red button viewing for an away league match wasn’t a great experience for those who tuned in sat in their armchairs or stood in the pub watching it unfold, certainly not for those who had to make the inconvenient journey at a punishing hour either.
I was in neither camp to be truthful, relying on updates from family and Twitter as I watched Church win at Enfield on the penultimate day of the cricket season, eschewing the age-old option of sitting by the bar window with one eye on the telly, the other on the goings-on outside.
But nobody relishes seeing their team having the floor wiped with them however creditably you’ve performed in the first 45 minutes. I am long enough in the tooth not to attempt to watch a Rovers game on licenced premises in Clayton-leMoors where more than one or two Clarets supporters, some of them tormented for three decades by their rivals, are drinking.
At the end of a week when Rovers fans had far too much to say about Burnley’s Euro-failures (and I’ll say here and now I’d happily take one more continental campaign, getting through ANY two rounds and visiting two of the great cities of the ancient world in the rest of my lifetime) it was those of a blue-and-white persuasion emerging sheepishly into the sunlight cursing their team’s display in mid-afternoon.
One dearly hopes it’s a one-off aberration but a year of comparative success does not mean observers must suspend any critical faculty when assessing the performance. That’s three times in six league games we’ve conceded twice. To balance that we’ve also kept three clean sheets but it would be my guess that if you let a couple in in half your games in this division you won’t win many of them.
Tony Mowbray’s asthen unemerged team were beaten 3-0 in the second game of last season and thereafter were breached twice on just eight occasions. Three of those were won, four drawn and only one lost but I don’t believe that kind of generosity will abound in the Championship.
The last time we were peppered to the tune of four away from home was at The Reebok in March 2014 and I’m pretty certain that Rovers haven’t opened the scoring and lost a game since Villa away in November 2016.
By and large, we’ve got into decent habits and shown powers of recovery, both during and after difficult matches. I’ve said before I thought September would be difficult but I was rather focussing on the games after the break.
They are for previewing at a later date and having only seen the goals from Ashton Gate I’m certainly not going to home in on individuals and their errors but capsizing to a team who’ve parted with much of their goal threat in summer means Mowbray must pay detailed attention to the defensive midfield and back line If they are as generous again, there are forward players in the championship to exploit any such vulnerability far more mercilessly than it would get punished at the Bristol Memorial Rugby Ground or Priestfield.
Let’s hope it was just one of those days. If it happens again there may be questions as to why we didn’t try a little harder to bring in a defender but people judging whether the window has been a success or failure seems ridiculously premature. We’ve seen a few minutes of Ben Brereton while Davenport, Reed, Rodwell, and young pair Lyons and Candlin are yet to don a first eleven shirt.
What we could do with is a fit and focussed Bradley Dack back in the productive groove he mined last season. A stunning bid from West Brom, whether it was £5m, £10m, £15m (or all three) won’t have helped, nor will his run-ins with the authorities. Even Rovers supporters will have little sympathy for one of their own thinking he’s entitled to play fast and loose with the system.
If it’s any help, Bradley, my legal eagle missus will certainly vouch for you knocking out a couple of hours’ unpaid work if you want to type a few hundred words out for next week’s international break Blue Eyed Boy column.
It was a mild shock to read that Charlie Mulgrew has lost the Scotland captaincy. The former Celtic ace at least added another to his stunning and richly varied tapestry of Rovers goals at Bristol. With quite a few caps needed to make the Hall of Fame perhaps he might consider retiring from internationals soon. I’m all for players being proud to play for their countries but we can do without any more stunts like the one where he was played for 90 minutes in Budapest 48 hours prior to an important league game.
Certainly I couldn’t be more delighted that Lenihan and Williams have been omitted from their national squads and will be raring to go against Villa a week on Saturday.
The Under-23s have had a difficult start, a 3-0 home defeat to Everton on Friday their latest result but as is the way with these things much of the team which has done so well this last two years has dispersed here and there or moved up. The two exciting new acquisitions Candlin and Lyons should freshen it up though and give the Leyland crowds an incentive to keep turning out.
With no meaningful football, all that remains is a last weekend of cricket. I hope to spend part of it watching Oswaldtwistle Immanuel, congratulating them on their first Ribblesdale League title.
KATERINA LEE’S CLARETS VIEW
IT has truly been a disappointing week for us in every aspect.
The most annoying part of our departure from the Europa League is that we could have quite easily and comfortably been 4-0 up at half time, it just wasn’t to be.
Sam Vokes missed about four sitters just in the first half alone and Ashley Barnes similarly missed an open net in the second half.
We completely battered Olympiacos for 90 minutes and yet for some reason we don’t get to the group stage of the Europa League.
It’s all a bit frustrating and made worse by the fact that that was probably the closest we’ll come to Europe for another 50 years. Well, at least my kids might get to see us in the Champions League or something…
To add insult to injury, what could’ve been our performance of the season so far (despite the loss and exit from Europa League) turned to absolute mush at home against Man United.
We weren’t shocking, and I’ve definitely seen us play much much worse (Watford at home a few weeks ago) but my word, it’s as though we will never score again.
I don’t quite understand that if we get the ball in the box, there doesn’t seem to