Putting points in perspective
BLUE-EYED BOY’S BLACKBURN VIEW
IT’S sometimes difficult to put football results in context and while this week’s brace of draws have rightly been favourably acclaimed, the weeks to come will tell us more than we are able to surmise at this stage about the value of points garnered against points lost..
Are we unbeaten in two? Without a win in three? Have we chucked points way? Gained points we ground out in the face of adversity against costlier, slick sides?
The only true reading is to look at the table and as I write this we lie thirteenth and depending on the rest of the midweek fixtures could be anywhere from 12th to 15th by the time everybody’s played eight times.
That’s a fair enough juncture to assess your standing in the fledgling table and I’d have shook hands on such a position at the beginning of the season.
After the Bristol City mauling I’d have happily taken draws from the following four fixtures. I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect us to win any of them. Now? I’d still take another two draws but I’m encouraged enough to believe we could bear Stoke or Forest.
I wasn’t at Bristol but it’s hard to believe the second half at Ashton Gate was any worse than the first at Pride Park.
Put simply, you won’t very often get away with as inept a 45 minutes as that.
What looked a bizarre team selection to start with proved so and it was no real surprise that Tony Mowbray made a swift change. Craig Conway’s chagrin at being the man hooked could be partially justified by the fact that he had been no more culpable than the rest of the four behind Dack and the curiously lost looking Armstrong.
Harrison Reed – or “Harrison” as he was dubbed by the Sky red button commentator who was possibly under the impression he’s a mononamed Brazilian – must have sat on the bench puzzled by the manager’s words about needing to do more to dislodge Evans and Smallwood. He looked a better, more proactive and energetic player than either in his cameo against Villa and must have looked on as bewildered as the rest of us at Derby having the freedom of Pride Park.
It wasn’t so much that nobody was holding the ball up up front as no-one was able to retain it, pass it or win it full stop.
Derby had oceans of space to play in but great credit to Rovers heroic back four and keeper for holding out.
That they continued to stand firm for a quarter of an hour into the second half enabled the Yellows to get a few steps up what had looked a mountainous climb back into the game The Rams, after the impressive Mount’s freekick hit the bar, almost visibly sighed collectively, you could pick up even without hi-def, close-ups and replays (the whole experience was like watching through specs four prescriptions old when you’ve broken your current ones) the belief that they were ever going to score visibly drain away.
A kinder bounce as Graham’s header and Dack would have been putting his one chance away for a classic away day smash’n’grab.
But it wasn’t to be, just as what looked like a monumental win against Villa wasn’t and we are where we are going into two further games against clubs who have spent extravagantly and fancy they will be among the promotion contenders without really having done anything so far to justify their optimism.
Stoke’s midweek win came courtesy of a blatantly offside winner against Swansea or they would be hovering just above the relegation zone. Forest, our next Ewood opponents, had underwhelmed up to time of press.
In between we have a rather unwanted trip to play, presumably, Bournemouth Reserves in the League Cup. I dearly love the knock-out competitions as you know but that wasn’t far off the worst possible draw.
I feel for the lads and girls who travel to every game having to fork out to get all that way and get in, but I really hope they’re rewarded with what every one of them would want, a win and another cup game to go to!
The expense of football for fans has been a talking point this week. Bolton announced their price for Rovers supporters in the lower tier at The Macron Stadium as £30 - and that’s a bit of a let-off as Wanderers are breaking this season’s protocol of selling the top tier first. That would have been 35 quid.
Rovers didn’t cover themselves in glory either by making the Villa game Category A. Just under 4,000 Villa fans turned up for the televised game (I think it was £27 for them) but less than 12,000 Rovers supporters opted to bother. A huge percentage of them would be season ticket holders with very few “occasionals” rolling up to pay on the day.
And in some ways I don’t blame anybody for staying home or going to the pub.
Without letting everyone in for prices which undercut season ticket holders, Rovers (and most other clubs in fairness) have got to be a bit more creative and attractive in their pricing.
If the opportunity to fleece big away followings are not to be spurned by the financial overlords though, that’s unlikely, which is sad.
The battling qualities and manifest togetherness of the team and fans carried over from last season have clearly not been dissipated by the summer or the more testing opposition a division higher as the two games this week has demonstrated.
It would be sad if no more effort was made to tap into the residual feelgood factor and attract back a portion of the 15,000 extra who turned up at bargain prices against Oxford.
KATERINA LEE’S CLARETS VIEW
IT looks like we are in some very dire straits right now.
It’s safe to say we are a shadow of the team we were last season and we don’t look anywhere near scoring a goal.
Now we sit quite sadly at the bottom of the table, with no Europa League in the week as a bit of solace. The game against Wolves on Sunday could have easily and should have been at least 6-0, to end 1-0 was flattering to us quite frankly.
Part of me could sit and argue that I don’t really know what happened in the second half, especially to our defence. Just before half time, Tarky and Hart played quite brilliantly and kept out a number of goals, however maybe therein lies the problem.
It was all Wolves, all attacking on their part and we had absolutely nothing like that in the second half (our only four chances came in the first half).
Perhaps even more embarrassingly, they had twice the number of shots on target alone.
So what on earth are we going to do about this? One thing I won’t do is call for Dyche out, as I heard one claret on Talksport do. Is it still