[Archived] Blackburn Vs Portsmouth. Ewood Park, 7Th November.

[martmitch]

positive tactics = best chance of a positive result, especially at home ffs

was having flashbacks of old trafford and half time when we hadnt even had one shot on goal. Benni might not be fit but you cant ignore the skill and flair he brings to the team, roberts may miss some sitters but hes always in the mix and creating chances.

Sam just cant ignore their contribution today as they turned the game on its head and started playing the blackburn way not the bolton way. Samba and chimbonda get special mentions for me today thought both were excellent (chimbonda more for his attacking play rather than the fisticuffs). back to 442 please surely sam cant have missed the difference between 1st and 2nd half, we were a completely different team and shows what we are capable of.

Special credit to sam for realizing how ineffective and stale our 1 up front tactics had become and having the balls to do something about it

[Guest Kamy100]

The first half was extremely poor, the formation was all wrong and the tactics were all wrong. We also allowed Portsmouth to much time and space.

The second half was the complete opposite, the substitutions/change of formation were positive, instead of hoofing the ball aimlessly we decided to pass the ball and stretch Pompey, also full back started to push forward, Pompey could not handle the pressure we applied and eventually we got the goals we deserved. Benni was good, mainly because he came short and linked play for us, Roberts when he doesn't have to think can score goals and for me Emerton was superb in the second half, he was non-stop, helping on the attacking and defensive side.

Huge three points and hopefully Sam has learned that we have some technically good footballers, if the tactics are positive and they are allowed to express themselves then it leads to better performances, obviously we can't play with three strikers all the time but the hope is that we will see 2 strikers from hereon.

[RIML]

Ryan Nelsen

[Tom]

Well well well you play strikers you score goals who knew?

Well done Sam for changing it, if he hadn't a lot of people would be wanting him out with good reason. The first halt was beyond awful very

much akin to Wigan away last year, the atmosphere was flat and rovers fans almost fighting amongst ourselves.

Second half was totally different the crowd was lifted by benni in particular.

Hopefully today saw the death of 451 at home it only works when dunn s on fire and today he was poor in the first half and Franco was either offside or by himself.

[Iceman]

Just watching the 2nd half again, and i know a 3 man attack can work. Having this line up:

Robbo

Chimbo Nelsen Samba Givet

Emerton/ Nzonzi

Roberts/Emerton Dunn Benni

Di Santo Kalinic/Roberts

That might look mad, but that is a good lineup. Roberts down the right, and inter changing with Emerton and Dunn, and Benni inter changing with the front 2 and Dunn.

[RovertheHill]

Just back. Cliche football!

Possibly the worst home performance under Sam in the first half. Possibly the best home performance under Sam in the second half.

Only person to emerge with any semblance of respect in the first half was Samba.

Big decision by Sam at half-time. Credit where it is due - he took it.

Credit also to Roberts who made a difference and cannot be ignored as a partner to Di Santo for the next game.

Onwards and upwards...

[Plastic Head]

Well hopefully the formation we have been playing was put to bed at 4pm today.

A totally turgid, feeble and toothles effort in the first half in which we made no impression whatsoever on the Portsmouth defence. All you can say is we defended OK apart from allowing a guy to shoot from 25 yards unmarked (again).

The boos from all around the ground at HT told the story and meant SA had to change something.

Straight away we looked like we could score against an ordinary team. We were not awesome by any means be at least carried a threat every time we went forward.

Robinson: An unusually quiet afternoon. 6/10

Chimbonda: Did well in defence and going foward in the 2nd half. BBC seemed to think the game balanced on a decision not to send him off after handbags, but failed to mention thier no.23 could have had 5 yellow cards. 7.5/10

Givet: Torrid afternoon but stuck to his guns. 5.5/10

Nelson: Rare goal and generally solid. 7/10

Samba: Athletic, strong and skillful. Didn't carry his usual threat going forward but the rock today. 8.5/10

Diouf: Contributed nothing. 1/10

Pedersen: Contributed absolutely nothing. Clearly didn't want the ball and hid behind Dunn. Set pieces and throws terrible. Some appaling touches. And to think Wilcox got stick. 0/10

Nzonzi: Confidence appears to have taken a knock recently but competed at least. 6/10

Emerton: Lots of running but didn't do enough defensively at times. Came into the game going forward in the 2nd half and kept going right to the end. 7/10

Dunn: Struggled to get into the game at times today, not helped by his team-mates, but fitness looked good. 6.5/10

Di Santo: Completely isolated first half, better in the 2nd. 6/10

Roberts: Added many more options at half time and 2 quite cool finishes. 8/10

McCarthy.: Changed the game, infuenced the result and looked class. His fitness may be in question but his ability isn't. 8.5/10

Keith: A mercifully short appearance. 6/10.

MOTM: McCarthy. Samba was excellent but McCarthy influenced the result more.

[RIML]

Nelson: Rare goal and generally solid. 7/10

He made the first goal and scored the second, he deserves a 9 imo. You've got to give credit where credit is due.

[Stuart]

Agree with other posters on here that the first half was the worst for some time.

I'm starting to think that the players are allowing the opposition to score to force Sam to ditch his tactics.

Admittedly an extremely cynical idea but would Sam have changed things if it had been 0-0 at the break?

[1864roverite]

As autumn fades and winter takes hold of Blighty, I took out my warmest jacket but left the gloves in the drawer, hoping that I wouldnt need them for at least a couple of more weeks. By 1547 today I wished the hell I had taken them.

Warmed by a free pie with the pint pre match, the talk was of "how many" we could pull back in the goal difference column against a joke of a pompy team, led by our former player "The Axe".

As the teams started at a cold, wet and eeriely quiet Ewood, I thought that the team put out on the park would easily overcome a poor Pompy outfit. How wrong can one be ?

Rovers began at pace, well seemingly they did. But very quickly the 4-4-1-1 formation was being picked off by a 4-4-2 Pompy side. Rovers backed off and off and what happens ? Englands likely 2nd choice keeper is beaten by a 25 yard grass cutter from his ex spuds teammate OHara. The blame lies solely at his feet, he should not be beaten from that range with a daisy cutter. So, after 9 minutes Rovers are facing down the barrell of a home defeat, not what is required after shipping 13 goals in the last 3 away games.

Rovers then strived to be effective using the now tried and trusted 4-4-1-1 system. Pompy coped easily with it. di Santo had no support whatsoever, he played his heart out against a 5 man pompy defence. The midfield of Rovers huffed and puffed. Pederson was totally ineffective as a Rovers player and was a bonus 12th man for Pompy, EHD was quite honestly the Pompy 13th man as the game bored me to tears. Rovers couldnt do anything right, the players argued, the crowd booed and rightly so.

4-5-1 yr having a laugh was the cry from the Blackburn End. Thank god I moved years ago because some of these numpers cant recognise we were not 4-5-1, we were 4-4-1-1. Half time couldnt come quick enough and Sam just HAD to make a change.

At half time, my mate sent me a text from COMS stating that City had made the dingles look like Brazil, my response was to say that we had made Pompy look like Real Madrid. A second text from the tunnel gave me the half time changes before it became knowledge. Benni and Roberts were to repalce our totally ineffective wide men, EHD and MGP.

Some will say it was a desperate act, having 3 main strikers on the pitch, some will say it was a miracle others will have their own views. My own view is that Rovers had to give themsselves an option of at least 2 forwards because Dunny was so ineffective in the hole, thisis because the Pompy system closed Rovers down so quickly.

After 9 minutes of the second half an instinctive finish from Roberts saw us draw level. INSTINCTIVE being the appropriate word because he really had so little time to think about it, that is what Roberts is all about. Give him time and he will miss.

At that point there was only ever going to be one winneer and that was Rovers. The hopes of Pompy and their fans evaporated as that ball hit the net, you could visibly see them wilt. The home crowd picked and you thought it only a matter of time before we took the lead. It was a long time coming but eventually a decent corner saw The Admiral net with a fine header and "The faggot in the pink" had no chance. 2-1 Rovers. You could sense the relief from Ewood Park but you could also see the ethic of our team, TOGETHER they celebrated the goal. More attacking play and a fine bit of football down the left saw Benni cross for yet another INSTINCTIVE finish from Roberts. 3-1 Rovers 3 points in the bag and a move upwards in the table by at least 4 spaces.

As the game ended we could and should have gone for more as a poor Pompy outfit folded but Rovers played it safe and saw the game out.A welcomed 3 points and a 5th home win on the bounce.

What is it we can do at home but not do away ? Bolton next on the horizon is interesting. They took a pasting today at Villa and will be sore as hell. In what should be a cracker of a derby, can Rovers take the spoils at the Breezeblock once again ? Thats for later.

Robbo - nothing to do apart from pick the ball out of the net. Blamed for the Pompy goal.

Chimbonda - should have seen red but did some good foraging down the right.

Nelsen and Samba - coped but for me, Samba had his work cut out with piqionne. He should really watch the offside because he causes mayhem in the away defence. Nelsen fantatic finish for his goal.

Givet - good game but had his moments.

MGP and EHD - useless pair of tw*ts today.

Emerton - slowly returning to his very best, looks stronger each game.

Dunny - for me his worst game this season looked lethargic but had one class pass down the left.

NZonzi - coped well, Clearly his inexperience showed today needs a minder in the middle for games like this.

di Santo - ran his heart out but needs support. We really need to keep this lad.

Roberts and Benni - good 45 minutes from both of them. JR showed his goalscoring instincts and gave the lady in front of us a seriously top orgasm with his second goal. Benni was Benni, we dont want flicks we want work and creativity. the cross for the 3rd goal was picture perfect.

Andrews - caused mayhem in the Rovers set up for his cameo.

Today will have shown Sam Allardyce one thing. NO MORE 4-4-1-1 at home especially agasint teams that line up like Pompy did and have midfield destroyers in both Brown and Mokoena. Rovers have the set up and players to play 4-3-3, 4-4-2 or the preferred 3-5-2.

Sam, you so nearly got it wrong and managed to pull out a result that see Rovers continue to progress up the league. For me, that is the first win out of a run of games we should be looking to win. Its the winkers next and we should be looing at rolling them over before taking Stoke at home.

We have had our poor run of hard games now we must look to take this club forward to a position where we can settle int he middle of the table and not worry about the teams behind us.

As for Mr Westwood and his Pompy team, cheerio mate on current form you may not see the likes of Ewood Park for a long time. Oh, yes, and take that what does that mean? bell with you.

[Iceman]

300 pound bet, plus my house that Sam will have 1 up front again in the next game.

[niggit]

Away to Bolton, 1 up front, no question.

[Bburninhisheart]

Happy days, another home win! Did they play the fanfreakintastic "Blackburn (Rovers in his heart)" by Seven before the game and during half time today too? If so, they've won all 3 games at Ewood Park after they aired it through the speakers there for the first time! Not a co-incidence... Rock on!

[Stuart]

Didn't hear it at half time but it was certainly on before the game.

[tony gale's mic]

Agree with other posters on here that the first half was the worst for some time.

I'm starting to think that the players are allowing the opposition to score to force Sam to ditch his tactics.

Admittedly an extremely cynical idea but would Sam have changed things if it had been 0-0 at the break?

And still the anti-Sam brigade gets more and more insane.

The tactics didn't work in the first half but Sam was well within his rights to go with them after the Burnley game.

[CrazyIvan]

Shocking first half. Belting second.

[stuwilky]

The first half was so dire there was a number of fans turning on each other at times, at least 3 unrelated situations near us. Never a good sign.

Second half was thoroughly enjoyable!

[Stuart]

And still the anti-Sam brigade gets more and more insane.

The tactics didn't work in the first half but Sam was well within his rights to go with them after the Burnley game.

I'm not anti-Allardyce. I have a very open mind about him, I've already said the things that annoy me about him, but I like to debate things. And on a messageboard too. How stupid of me.

Do you think Sam would have changed things at half time had it been 0-0? Fair question.

[hollowsr]

Being a poor student I couldn't pass up the Darwen End Double offer, so I was there today. My dad decided to join me but we were a bit late, didn't help that Rovers ticket system went down at 2.55. Meaning anyone getting a ticket were stood waiting there. So I missed the first few minutes.

When I finally got in I wished I hadn't, first half was atrocious and we were commenting about how we looked worse than the relegation side in the first half.

Gamst and Diouf were awful in the first half and for the 1st time I can remember the manager thought the same and did something about it also, so fair play to Sam. Second half we played well but at times were showboating (Dunn and McCarthy especially)

I thought the man of the match was an interesting decision as always by Rovers, I personally thought that Emerton deserved it as did my dad. He has a great engine and is also quick in getting forward and getting back. Chimbonda played well in getting forward also in the 2nd half, we did stop playing it down that side after the 2nd but then picked it up again which created more joy.

Still looking for N'Zonzi to do a bit more though, he's a very good passer of the ball but needs to be involved in more aspects of the game.

Also Darwen End had a great atmosphere today and loved sitting there, can't wait for the Stoke game now.

Edit: Also I have to agree with what many are saying on here, Roberts was class today, amazing, though I did miss the first goal but have since seen it instinctive finish.

[Hughesy]

things weren't this grim even under Ince. At least he was always trying new things when it looked like something wasn't working.

Yeah ok....lets see who has more points after 17 games!!

I'm not one for knee jerk reactions, but we're going down. No creativity at all and Pompy look much better than us.

BFS is not going to change anything. His biggest problem is his stubburn attitude.

Not knee-jerk eh? Not going to change anything?

Sam too stubborn to change when 4-4-1-1 doesn't work? Roberts coming on is a terrible decision? Maybe he is the expert after all!

Apparently he wouldnt change it?

Hopefully Sam gets the credit for changing it! He went 4-4-1-1 to ensure they didnt take an early lead - it didnt work and he changed it! Surely eh deserves some credit for that?!

Message to N01 - BIG SAM DID SORT IT OUT!!

Benni McCarthy was a class apart when he came on. Chimbonda & Samba both also had excellent games!

[JamieUK]

Re the formation : Sam said on Radio Rovers that the second half performance had given him food for thought and they may look to keep Dunn in the hole BUT have 2 players in front of him. Will be interesting but hopefully will work... I have to admit being worried when the subs were made and it looked as though Nzonzi was being left isolated in the middle. Thankfully as others have pointed out, the fullbacks came into the game more and the width that we may have lost wasn't and Emerton was able to stay inside.

[grizfoot]

Mentioned by a few posters already but I've got to agree in saying the first 45 minutes was probably the worst home performance I've seen for quite a while, definitely the worse since Big Sam took charge.

The 4-5-1 formation that seems to be now our regular formation just wasn't working. I've alluded to it many times before as have others on here we simply don't have the right players to effectively work a 4-5-1 formation. The system relies to heavily on Dunn turning in a magnificent performance every week, which fortunately for us he has been doing recently. But first half he was totally off the pace. If you combine that with the totally useless Pedersen and the wandering Diouf (he was suppose to be playing right midfield wasn't he?). This led to a quite shocking first half that found us totally absent of any sort of attacking threat.

I don't blame Big Sam for going with 4-5-1 it had worked in the past home games but no disrespect to Portsmouth, but we should be looking to attack these teams who in my opinion have a considerably less talented team. Fair play to Big Sam for making the changes at half-time although I'm sure the majority of the crowd would have took Pedersen off and brought McCarthy. But the surprise came when he also took Diouf off and brought on Roberts. Three strikers on the pitch at once, this must be a dream!

The second half it was like a totally different team had stepped out onto the pitch. Suddenly we passed the ball around and found plenty of space for players to run into particualry down their left-side with Roberts, Chimbonda and Emerton combining well. Number of reasons for this, one being we had three strikers out on the pitch which forced Portsmouth to drop deeper, they were playing a very high line in the first half and fluffing out all our attacks. Secondly no Pedersen or Diouf to slow down counter-attacks, which they seemingly do time after time when they are on the pitch also helped the cause and picked up the tempo.

Never can a change in formation be under-estimated. Today's second half was a perfect example of this. It's hard to put a finger on the exact formation we played second half but it was definitely a lot more offensive and exotic than we have come a customised to under Big Sam. The simple fact we had more bodies upfront caused Pompey no ends of problems.

I'll try to outline the formation, don't know if it was intended to be this complex and inter-changeable but it did work well.

- You firstly had Nelsen and Samba in the normal centre back positions, and then we had Givet at left back who rarely ventured forward whereas Chimbonda was always a threat bombing forward from the right. At time it almost changed to a three at the back with Chimbonda being so far forward, however when Chimbonda was caught forward Emerton seemed to slot back into the right back slot one which we all know he's capable of playing.

- The midfield I think was suppose to be the rarely used diamond that Chelsea have recently adopted under Ancelotti. With Nzonzi playing the holding role in midfield, although even he seemed to venture forward for aerial attacks. On the right-side you had Emerton who can cover a lot of ground and was almost playing three positions in one at times (RB, RM, CM). Then on the left-hand side and at the point of the diamond you had Benni and Dunn cleverly inter-changing positions throughout the half.

- Upfront Roberts and Di Santo both willing workers helped drag defenders out of position for others to exploit. Roberts was superb, not often have I said that but it just shows when you have the right service and two strikers upfront we are capable of putting teams to the sword.

Many would have thought this would have left us extremely vulnerable at the back, this indeed was the case on a couple of occasions with us having four players caught up field as Pompey counter-attacked on one occassion I recall. But the positives totally out-weighted the negative our attacking play was much more flowing and we had more attacking threats on the pitch. Our goals all came as result of some sort of set-piece all of which was due to good delivery and the fact we had a lot of potential goalscroers on the pitch. Threats in the form of Samba, Givet, Nelsen, Nzonzi, Roberts, McCarthy and Di Santo all in the box at set pieces it was no wonder that one of them managed to find the back of the net.

Overall I'm happy that we managed to turn it around after the torrid first half. Got to credit Big Sam for changing it at half-time it takes a good manager to realise when to change something if it's not working. I'm sure many others managers would have given the likes of Pedersen and Diouf another 15 minutes of the second half but he didn't which was the right decision. I just hope Big Sam now as the sense to scrap the 4-5-1 at home, especially against the lesser opposition because it's simply to predictable and teams have grown aware to the fact that Dunn is our only creative player. I do like the idea of the formation we played in that second half only problem is we could leak goals left, right and centre playing that formation if we are not careful. The talk about Dunn having taken McCarthy's place in the side was a bit strange to me as we saw in the second half the two can play perfectly well together in the same team.

[Amo]

I'm glad we were able to shake the shackles of that rigid and pathetic 4-5-1 and actually take the game to Portsmouth. I thought Sam would persevere with his efforts, but credit where it's due for seeing what we all could and turning it around. I don't care what anyone says about McCarthy's casual attitude & lack of fitness, the guy has genuine class which is a rarity in our squad. He must play an important part in our campaign.

Still a little perplexed that Kalinic was untried again. One of most expensive signings and yet we're lucky to see 20minutes of him.

[RIML]

Message to N01 - BIG SAM DID SORT IT OUT!!

I sit in the corner of N01 and it was embarrassing when the so called supporters were singing 4-5-1 you're having a laugh.

IT'S NOT HOW YOU START, IT'S HOW YOU FINISH.

[Ben-2000]

I sit in the corner of N01 and it was embarrassing when the so called supporters were singing 4-5-1 you're having a laugh.

IT'S NOT HOW YOU START, IT'S HOW YOU FINISH.

I usually hear most chants from the BBE from my position in the middle of the Riverside. I didn't hear that one so must have just been the odd d.head.