Expecting more highs and lows
BLUE-EYED BOY’S BLACKBURN VIEW
MY travel plans, not match schedules, i.e. an early morning flight to Berlin, dictate that I have to offer this week’s column in the style of what football reporters used to call a “runner”– that is I’m more or less attempting to gauge what mood we’ll all be in by the end of the 90 minutes at Swansea while typing away as the match is in progress.
Fortunately in the internet age I don’t have to go to the extremes the late Peter White had to once to keep the Sports Pink copy typists abreast of developments in a 1980 cup tie at Kidderminster, popping out across the road at 20-minutely intervals to a toffee shop with a payphone to ring his updates through as there were no such technologies available in what passed for a press box at homely Aggborough.
It’s beyond discussion that we all came out of the weekend into the Tuesday game on a collective high having despatched Leeds United and their 7,700 supporters summarily, hopefully specifically ruining the day of that insufferable little twerp from their official Twitter account who had the temerity to attempt to troll Rovers fans about not filling the ground as their ticket sales went well.
Last time I was at Elland Road there were about 15,000 empty seats at the start, many hundreds more vacated by the time no less of a footballing titan than Jay Spearing completed a 3-0 Rovers rout, so why Leeds fans seem to regard us beating them as some kind of holy grail rarity or the undoubted and utterly un-peakable highlight of our season I have no idea.
By Monday the mighty marching altogether hordes were lamenting that because they used to be a famed and storied club in decades past, Championship sides like us quite unreasonably summon up every demonic will to queer their inexorable path back to glory, producing uncharacter i s t i c a l l y superhuman performances, the like of which we find it wholly impossible to turn in on the 44 occasions a season we play someone else.
How odd. It’s not an excuse I’ve ever really heard from Man United, Chelsea or Liverpool followers.
My own humble reading of proceedings – and I’ll freely admit I haven’t looked forward to a game as much for a while given the seemingly intermina- ble crawl of the international break – was that they were a bit bobbins, particularly at defending set pieces, and we played very well, repeating the commitment, intensity and burning desire to do well we’ve seen when two down against Reading, beating a Brentford side who gave us far more to think about than Leeds, or drawing against Villa and Forest sides which looked every inch Leeds’ equal and were backed by maybe smaller but far more vociferous followings than a strangely subdued lot who were perhaps stunned by the fact that their manager obviously hadn’t done his homework on set-plays as well as Tony Mowbray had 110 seconds into proceedings.
From that point on it was as full-blooded and fascinating an encounter as we have come to expect in this tight and competitive Championship and no real surprise to anyone who’s studied Rovers over the last 12 months that Mowbray’s team overcame a sickening out-ofthe-blue setback, and the inevitable shift in the game such a goal brings, to once again bounce back and grab the game’s pivotal moment for themselves.
Two goals headed in from corners may not sat- isfy a footballing romantic such as Bielsa but Graham and Lenihan and great delivery from Reed and Conway are bread and butter footballing staples you practice to death. There are many ways to fashion a goal but score two in however mundane and cliched a fashion as the purists would have it and you don’t lose that many games.
It was a notable scalp and an enormously significant step to beat one of these fancied teams at home. Had Leeds equalised late on and the Ewood league record stood at one win in seven, all the heroic and spirited effort in the world couldn’t have glossed over the stats.
The table was so compressed going into the Swansea game that, though standing in a mouth-watering seventh spot, it was entirely possible that by the final whistle at The Hawthorns on Saturday we could with a six-point swing, have just as equally been passed by 18th-placed Bolton or ourselves overhauled top side Middlesbrough.
It looked promising for further progress as we fairly coasted the first half at Swansea and deservedly led but a second half of contrasting fortunes for the managers merely emphasised the anyone- can-beat-anyone of the division.
A couple of substitutions and instructions to run at the heart of a Rovers midfield and defence clearly uncomfortable with directness and pace whether it be from accumulating bookings or attendant reshuffles made it virtually a prize every time for the rejuvanated Swans, reminiscent of the collapse at Ashton Gate.
Let’s hope Lenihan is rapidly fit as sticking Rodwell in there backfired. Surely the tried Williams was a better bet at the back.
Finishing up with Brereton wide left and Armstrong wide right was confusing and while there are times the expansive Rothwell will be a card to play, a passage when we were getting run ragged wasn’t one of them/
Anything at The Hawthorns against a potent West Brom will be a bonus before the home double date with improving QPR and not-as-bad-as-youmight- think Rotherham.
Don’t be surprised when highs are followed by lows this season. There might even be successive lows, two, three four of them.
And, yes, seasoned football scribes, that last couple of paragraphs did require a rapid second half re-write after scrapping the euphoric half time version! nature
KATERINA LEE’S CLARETS VIEW
WELL I don’t think any of us were remotely surprised by Saturday’s results against City
– in fact the 0-5 scoreline was probably generous on us. We can sit here and whinge about the quite unfair second goal, sure, but that doesn’t take away from the fact we were fast asleep at the back which caused the numerous other goals.
One thing I do think is unfair is watching a very upset Joe Hart apologising for switching off. In all honesty I think he was the only one truly defending, and he did make a few fantastic stops. It clearly brought back some painful memories of his last season after getting a nice reception from his former club – in all I don’t think he should take the entirety of the weight on his shoulders for our poor performance.
There was a huge air of excitement for the return of Defou, yet I don’t think I remember a point at which he touched the ball, or took free kicks as we know he can so well.
There’s a thought that he perhaps isn’t fit enough to come back yet, and perhaps we are still sorely missing Brady too.