Blackburn showcase promotion potential
A Premier League promotion candidate was on display at Ewood Park yesterday. So were Leeds United.
Leeds began the season with a sprint but arrived here with just two wins from their past seven Championship fixtures and talk will resurface about them peaking too soon.
Yet that will do Blackburn a huge disservice. They may not have a squad deep enough to pull off automatic promotion, but if they continue to play like this, then play-off glory may be possible, even if Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa disagreed with the notion that Blackburn were the dominant side.
“We lost against a rival who is not better than us,” he said. “Maybe a draw would have reflected better what happened. It’s normal that in such a long competition you have ups and downs. If we link the last draw and this loss, we have to conclude that we are in a low moment. We have to find solutions as soon as possible.”
One solution could be to tell his players to mark the opposition at set-pieces. The game was not 100 seconds old when Danny Graham gave Rovers the lead, throwing himself through a melee of bodies and elbows to head Harrison Reed’s corner home with a wonderful thump.
Kemar Roofe, Samuel Saiz and Gaetano Berardi were a threat for the visitors, but the home side more than matched their marauding. As half-time approached, the game flattened until Leeds struck brilliantly.
After Saiz found Berardi on the right wing, the home team stood still and allowed Mateusz Klich to sneak in from nowhere to score from five yards.
In the second half, galvanised Leeds had all the momentum, yet Blackburn did not miss their one shot at the visitors’ jugular. With 20 minutes left, and with their first real offensive move of the second half, Darragh Lenihan threw himself at a Craig Conway corner and Bailey Peacock-Farrell was beaten by a fine header.
A wonderful David Raya save from a 25-yard Klich effort kept Blackburn in front, and Tony Mowbray’s men clung on for a result that will reverberate around the Championship.
“It’s a big three points, but every three points is big for us in this league,” he said.