[Archived] Blackburn Rovers 3 West Ham 2

[andyrovers]

Brad's chest charge to Sav's was a warning. Don't mess with Big Bad Brad......

But it was nice to see peace and harmony on t pitch

[CornwallRover]

For those not watching we're the full game on sky sports 1 now. about 10-20 mins in.

[Darth Paul]

In a funny sort of way, the fact that they fell out and then made up on the pitch actually came across as a positive to me. Its good to see our players be both passionate and also big enough to kiss and make up, all for the blue and white cause.

Not the best example today of how well Rovers can play, but a great advert for so many reasons to encourage all the missing fans to come back.

I think I actually enjoyed today more than the Chrlton game, overall...

[Krillin]

From what I could see the spark to the incident was as described above (Colin). Brad made the save and words were exchanged between the players as to, presumeably, whose fault it was.

Savage seemed to want to continue the 'discussion' whilst Brad was trying to clear the ball back into play and, much like an opposition forward would do, stood in front of him preventing this.

Brad then got a bit fed up with it and pushed the ball into Savage's chest.

Once this happened Savage looked fairly surprised and I think realised that marks had been overstepped.

Good to see the handshakes afterwards, although the referee had words with both players on the quiet too.

(Search for 'Blackburn Rovers' on the Getty Images website for pictures of the incident/game)

[sleepyjack]

Anyone else felt Carroll would have been sent off for his lunge, if he played for us?

366162[/snapback]

No. There's no conspiracy or discrimination against Rovers by referees, and it's silly to suggest otherwise. Every set of fans has games where they believe that decisions are going against their team and they get on the ref's back. There was nothing Riley did today that looked suspect, he did alright dealing with Harewood and even gave us a suspect penalty. Stop moaning.

Not the best of games in terms of Rovers' performance, but I came away feeling delirious after our second half. Thought Reid looked awful at RB, afraid of the ball and too timid to challenge - his backing off led to their second goal. On his day he can be a very good midfielder, but he's no full back anymore. Real cover for Lucas whenever he is out or has to play in the centre is essential.

All of the midfield were ineffective throughout. Savage took some decent free kicks but did nothing else, ran around making rash challenges and didn't dominate the middle of the pitch in the way he's shown he can. Emerton was even more frustrating than usual, one or two great crosses but most of the time he was late running on to passes, making sloppy mistakes and generally drifting out of the game. Tugay and Pedersen just didn't make much of an impact at all, gave the ball away far too often.

Up front, in midfield or in the hole between the two, wherever he was playing, Bentley was just crap. First touches coming off his shins, not closing down the opposition, not making any good runs with or without the ball. It might just be his demeanor on the pitch but a lot of the time, especially first half, it seemed like he was barely trying. Still, after the score became 3-2 he helped us keep possession quite well before his injury.

Neill, Zurab, Gray and Dickov all ran their socks off and fought hard for every 50-50. Neill's attacking play was poor for once, but otherwise the four of them were all good, Gray especially. Dickov is hardly a striker to set the Premiership alight, but he gave his all and dragged us back into the game. Kuqi took his goal well and unsettled their defence; I'd start him next game if Bellamy is still unfit, he's not wonderful but I think Bentley is a waste of space.

Thank God Harewood missed that one on one.

[Shaddy]

Kuqi is one of my favourite current Rovers players. He's like a big version of Dickov, who I also admire for the same reason, a great work ethic. Thankfully, Hughes has instilled a good work ethic throughout the squad.

And I don't care what anyone says, he is Premiership standard, because he was deemed fit enough by a premier league club to play in the first team. To me, that is the standard.

[1864roverite]

sleepy J

give bentley the ball and he can manipulate it very well even as good as Tugay.

He just needs to be more confident about the players around him

[Ozz]

Haaaapppppyyyyy

[MCMC1875]

Yes

Rovers on the ascendent again.

[nonaynevernomore]

Great result but I was very disappointed with zurabs conduct. He dived after a Harewood challenge when TV replays showed no conduct was made, promting Harewoods angry reaction ( the first one, watched on fottball first) And Savage and Freidel shook hands at the end and mark hughes assured us they had made up. I believe Emerton should have stayed on as Bentley is no way a wide player and emerton was just starting to find his feet in the game. I believe his lack of confidence affects his performance as he appears too hesitant.

Freidel-7

Some top saves ut once or twice looked shaky. shouldnt have pushed savage as it could have provoked soething from him.

Reid-4

Not a right back and was at fault for WHU creating some chances.

neill-8

Good performance from Lucas. Very versatile and went on a great run, shame he didnt get past the last man.

Zurab-6

Shaky and very nearly gifted harewood a goal. His diving was annoying.

Gray-6

Caught out of position going on attacking runs.

Emerton-6.5

Too hesitant and his lack of confidence was evident. He did put some nice crosses in though and had a good second half before his substitution.

Savage-8

Great stamina and really put himself about.

Tugay-6

Not his day and some passes went astray too often.

Pedersen-7

Was poor but his assist for the second makes me give him a 7.

AXE-7

Protected the back four well and helped the defence keeep tight.

Bentley-7

Average game for the loanee.

Dickov-8

Two well taken goals and 100% effort.

kuqi-7

Put himself about and did well for the goal. id give his celebration 10 though.

Jansen-10 (LOL) n/a

The attendance was 20,000 but was it me or were there a large amout of fans in the darwen end?? if anyone has already mentioned any of these things sorry ive not read it.

I thought there was a good atmosphere overall, most notably in the second half. and to cap it off Burnley lost.

Ive never felt more like singing the blues................

[Florida Rover]

We need a win to steady the ship so i'm going to go with a 3-2 victory, we will definatly not keep a clean sheet as we have not won for a while without conceding in the league if i am correct. Maybe we might break our duct of not winning after going behind on saturday, isn't it something ridiculous like 49 games.

Quite prescient there ,Dingle hater!For a Christmas present can we now win five on the trot?What do you say? That would do wonders for everything Rovers related.

Florida Rover

[MCMC1875]

Not last on MOTD? There must be some mistake?

Lawro: 'Congrats to Blackburn'

I must be dreaming!

[LeChuck]

give bentley the ball and he can manipulate it very well even as good as Tugay.

He just needs to be more confident about the players around him

366173[/snapback]

Agreed, I thought he was very good today.

For some reason he's become the popular player to knock, so no matter what he does at the moment people are going to complain.

Kuqi is a useful weapon to have coming from the bench, I still don't think he should be starting games though, he certainly seems more effective coming from the sidelines and disrupting the opposition defence.

Has anyone mentioned the 'fight' between Savage and Friedel yet? I wish Friedel had lamped him one. Actually, I don't, simply because Friedel would get into serious trouble, but I wish someone would give the Welsh fairy a good whack. Whatever went wrong with the communication, the simple fact is Savage had to deal with that ball once he'd made the decision to lunge at it, it's a basic rule of defending.

Also...he did his best to put us down to 10 men for the second game in a row, he's just lucky his goalkeeping skills aren't up to much or it would have been 2-2 and we'd have been a player short.

Savage aside, I'm extremely happy with the way the team is going at the moment. I don't really care that the defence has gone to pieces, we're exciting to watch and we're still picking enough points to be hovering close enough to European places to be considered serious challengers. There's no way we would have come back and won had this match been played pre-Old Trafford...hopefully Hughes will stick with whatever is making us great entertainment at the moment.

[Rovers Air Force]

Kuqi in line for a start for the next game?

He's doing a good job of proving doubters like me wrong. I wouldn't say he has actually got anywhere near proving that he is a Prem standard forward, that takesa couple of seasons at least, but he's on the way.

366158[/snapback]

Nope!!! He does not have the class to start a prem match!!!!

He is the player to bring on mid 2nd half to batter a 2nd/3rd goal to win or draw the match, plus with his size....not sure what his fitness would be for a full 90 mins!

[Rovers Air Force]

Fantastic post fella! Sorry Roverite

Edited December 11, 2005 by Paul

[modes98]

Anyone else felt Carroll would have been sent off for his lunge, if he played for us?

366162[/snapback]

After seeing the incident on sky, i would think he deserved a red for it in a normal match situation, regardless of last man etc. The only factor that saved him was the "foul" by dickov. But i'm not complaining 3 points are 3 points.

100% a pen, he stuck his arm out and can have no complaints. An awful defender doing an awful job, back to the republic in january for the home sick man, maybe he should stay there!

[JAL]

Some shocking, shocking defending by Rovers, i truely belive that Lucas and Zurab were terrified of Harewood and Zamora's physical presence but gladly Rovers saviour was a certain Christian Dailly who came on as a sub for the unfortunate Gabbidon to display once again his full array of inept footballing talents to us the Ewood faithful.

West Hams first goal came from a poor, poor, very poor pass from Bentley that failed to reach an attacking forward run by Robbie Savage which caught rovers completely with their pants down.

From being a mean lean defensive unit last season, this season we look like we cant defend to save our lives, i'm sure Rovers will find the right balance soon but we do look like a bunch of fancy dans at times which is alright so long as we are winning.

Well done to Rovers it all added to the excitment .

[Rovermatt]

We got lucky today. Very lucky.

Who cares though? Those were three very welcome points.

[s_simpson_9]

I am falling in love with Kuqi.

I remember when we first got him I thought ... he's big, he's fast, he can jump ... he will do me ... but the man's work ethic and attitude are absolute top draw.

Full credit to him. Two winners on the trot.

Someone said above that he is a big paul dickov. But i hope he continues on his current run and turns into our Ole Gunnar ... the super sub. And what a big strong ugly quick angry super sub he is. The type of player who makes the opponent's defence brick it.

i dont know the exact words to "You are my Sunshine" so bear with me

You are my shefki

my shefki kuqi

you make me happy when skies are grey

you'll never know just how much i love you

please dont take my shefki away.

KUQI!

Plus a good mate of mine is a hammer. so i own bragging rights until next time.

Someone on another topic said rovers have no memorable games. Just mediocrity. Fook that. The beauty of rovers is we dont know what we are going to get. But when we get it, it is great.

Yes it was squeeky bum time. But lets all accentuate the positives. Another win. 21 points.

We go into the (non denomination) end of year season ... we will probably lose a couple that we will all moan and groan about ... and at the end of the season we will probably finish 12th. But hey.

Life is good as a rovers fan ... and we are without doubt a team on the up.

wooohooooo.

[Bobby G]

Thank God for the vital 3 points. After a poor first half, Sparky must have given them a rollicking at half time and it worked!

Our defending was poor today, but that was expected with 3 players either coming in or moving around in the back four.

Zurab had his worst game for us yet.

Emerton was very poor again. Bentley was lively in the second 45.

First win in the league after coming back from a goal down since April 2003 against Leeds!

[Paul]

Thoroughly entertained all afternoon and delighted with the result. I'm still not sure how we managed to win! I'm not convinced Kugi should be a regular starter but I thought he should have a had a full 90 minutes against a very shaky WHU; he would have battered them. To some extent West Ham can only balme themselves for this defeat, they can clearly play well but while there was a possibility of a draw they sat back and let us play for long periods.

Last week I was probably the only person who felt the Todd handball decision was correct. I thought the sending off was harsh but it was a handball. How many on here think we should have had a penalty for this week's "handball?" If Todd's was accidental then so was this one - a very dodgy decision. I'n not complaining but it does back up my point that had the Todd decsion been an Everton player we would have been demanding at least a booking. Mind you we had a much clearer shout for a penalty in the first half.

[waggy]

as i entered the ground,the team sheet was on the tv and my heart sunk.no nelsen to go with the missing bellamy,not only that sparky changes the whole team,by playing lucas at centre back and ried at right back.a paper wieght attack off bentley and dickov.

by half time a draw was the best result i could hope for,at 90 minutes i realised FOOTBALL'S A FUNNY OLD GAME

[roversmum]

I'm with Waggy there. The team didn't inspire me at all, but given those available was probably what I'd gone for.

I think Bentley is coming on nicely, the lad will do for me - not convinced he should be a regular in the team as yet but it would be good to keep him.

Lucas Neill - what a talent - glad to see him getting the Captain's armband when Tugs went off, please don't let Lucas go anywhere, Sparky.

Zura looks to have lost a bit of confidence but he is one we must keep, he's a young lad yet.

Paul Dickov - what can you say that hasn't been said before? Off the pitch he is a lovely friendly man but he must be the dread of opposition defenders like an itch you can't scratch! And bringing on a fresh Shefki when they are tiring to add to their torment - brilliant!

One or two of the players produced their usual cringe-making moments but at the end of the day they got us three points! Go, lads!

I'm begining to enjoy watching Rovers again.

You are my shefki

my shefki kuqi

you make me happy when skies are grey

you'll never know just how much i love you

please dont take my shefki away.

KUQI!

You can come round to tea any time, Shefki!

[stuwilky]

Anyone see Tugay after the match? Gloating rather a lot to Mr Marlon Harewood? Pointing at the scoreboard, rubbing his eyes then kissing the badge!

[Yorick]

Awful and amateurish performance by all but the most exciting second half of the season at Ewood. West Ham played their part by attacking us and not allowing any of our players any time on the ball.

At least Todds detracters will have to eat a large helping of humble pie this morning courtesy of Zurabs awful performance.

I'm angry at the BBC for putting us on early as I missed the first half. Pardew sounded a right puff for whingeing about yellow cards as most were well deserved and he is damned lucky that he will be able to pick his keeper for the next 3 matches? btw I never realised that Mike Riley has a twin!

Emerton yet again had a free run on goal in the first half and chose to turn back and allow the entire defence to recover. What does go on in his head sometimes? The most frustrating player that I can ever remember. He has the ability and potential to be devastating but appears to have absolutely nothing between his ears.

I'm with Savage but it looked like he should choose his words more carefully. Brad needs to shout and become more dominating. Sav clearly heard a shout and left the ball and Brad failed to collect.

Kuqi imo is more suited for coming on at 60 mins and making things happen than for putting on at the start. Hughes is playing him just right and to his strengths at the moment. Played from the start and Prem defenders will easily get the measure of him.