[Archived] Rovers v West Brom

[cruz]

The regular team under Hughes would've been (roughly):

Friedel

Ooijer-Samba-Nelsen-Warnock

Bentley-Savage-Tugay-Pedersen

Santa Cruz-Roberts

When we started this season, out of those 11 players, we only had Samba and Nelsen remaining as the core of the team. Pedersen's still part of the core team, but playing in a different position and Roberts was out of form and out of favour.

Look at our team against West Brom... Robinson, Givet, Salgado, Jones, Olsson, Hoilett, Kalinic... even Santa Cruz is like a new signing. Completely different team, so yes we have re-built the team and it's not the same team we had under Hughes at all. I can't believe you're actually arguing this point?

Hardly Sams team either. Out of the starting XI Sam signed Givet, Salgado and Kalanic.

Most overhyped manager in history

[philipl]

Hardly Sams team either. Out of the starting XI Sam signed Givet, Salgado and Kalanic.

Most overhyped manager in history

That is an utterly stupid post.

The net transfer spend in Sam's time was a negative number yet he pulled us back from being 5 points from safety, achieved a top half finish and took us to a Cup semi-final.

And only two of the players out of the 14 used yesterday had not played under Sam.

Talking of Sam, it was good to see him looking so relaxed and not openly bearing or seemingly hiding any malice towards Rovers. A display of magnaminity which is clearly beyond your comprehension.

[AndyC]

Hardly Sams team either. Out of the starting XI Sam signed Givet, Salgado and Kalanic.

Most overhyped manager in history

and sam gave debuts to all the youngsters - something hughes never did.

[Mattyblue]

Speaking as a firm supporter of Allardyce, I believe we need to put the Sam issue to bed.

The facts were that he saved us from the Ince debacle and was well on the way to guiding us to a third successive higher league position on a crap budget.

However, the style of football was hard to warm to, speaking personally I just want to win, but I appreciate that many felllow Blues were less than enthused.

Whatever the circumstances were that found Kean in the hotseat, it is time to move on and appreciate that he has been a calming influence at a dificult time and we are seeing some stellar perfomances at Ewood.

But, give Allardyce the respect he deserves.

[Hughesy]

Says a lot to me when someone as poor as Jason Roberts would actually improve their starting 11…

Yes they can retain possession, but that’s about it. Poor in defence, poor upfront, not much in terms of quality. A few more games without a win & they will be in serious danger of going down – AGAIN!

[JoeBlueWhite]

Surprise, surprise. Even when we win, you're still only interested in waxing lyrical about Big Sam. Seriously, what is it between you two?

I think jim mk2's trolling has moved into the comedy genius category now.

We should all be thanking Big Sam this morning for getting us to seventh in the league. Nothing to do with Steve Kean of course. Our two wins over West Brom [3-1 and 2-0] were both purely down to luck as well.

Funny stuff jim.

[sweet]

The regular team under Hughes would've been (roughly):

Friedel

Ooijer-Samba-Nelsen-Warnock

Bentley-Savage-Tugay-Pedersen

Santa Cruz-Roberts

When we started this season, out of those 11 players, we only had Samba and Nelsen remaining as the core of the team. Pedersen's still part of the core team, but playing in a different position and Roberts was out of form and out of favour.

Look at our team against West Brom... Robinson, Givet, Salgado, Jones, Olsson, Hoilett, Kalinic... even Santa Cruz is like a new signing. Completely different team, so yes we have re-built the team and it's not the same team we had under Hughes at all. I can't believe you're actually arguing this point?

I wasn't arguing the point he didnt rebuild, my point was that it didnt need rebuilding to compete well in the premiership. If he had carried on with the style that hughes employed when he first took over, he wouldnt of needed to rebuild drastically.

Also, I was stating the team, when he FIRST took over, was basically the same team hughes had competing for europe the previous season (barring only bentley, if we assume robinson is good enough to replace friedel). Not the team on show today. And it was to further illustrate that the team didn't need rebuilding, what needed rebuilding was the management and coaches.

[alexanders]

and sam gave debuts to all the youngsters - something hughes never did.

Jemal Johnson, Jay Mceveley, Matt Derbyshire I think.

Wasnt Hughes fault that they werent as good as todays youngsters.

[Robbo]

On his performance yesterday and with a few players returning i would think that MGP may be looking at a wee spell on the bench. Not only is he one pace, the main reason why he was brought in off the wing in the first place, but his ball retention and lethargic passing is dire and also putting the team under needless pressure.

Also slightly worrying that our shape fell away a bit following the substitutions but we never looked in (that much) trouble.

On a more positive note it was an entertaining match. Pace, passing and the Hoilett goal was excellent.

Thought Jones had a decent debut and he will improve with a couple of matches.

3 points and up to 7th. That'll do for me.

[chris]

Surprise, surprise. Even when we win, you're still only interested in waxing lyrical about Big Sam. Seriously, what is it between you two?

Yeah time to move on.

Whatever Venky have done good or bad its certainly exciting, supporting blackburn is actually exciting again.

I do think Kean is in a puppet position but it seems ok so far, if we could play west brom every week.

The players seem happy and I want to see that big signing, hopefully he's under 40.

[m1st]

One of the joys of being [early] retired is that you can postpone reading a thread like this until the morning after a Sunday game. That's particularly useful when it was a game like yesterday's when we put out a distinctly different team with our two loan signings making, imo, a real difference.

I thought that Jones made a real difference in midfield, playing the role that Savage and McKinlay used to play, giving the other midfielders the freedom to go forward. I thought that Jones' presence in the team allowed Dunny, in particular, to play his best game for us in a long time. I know he's referred to his 6 months here; but, based on yesterday's performance, I think that he's someone I'd like to see be offered a permanent contract, once he's up to full match-fitness and come to terms with the requirements of the Premier League.

Like someone else posted, I'd forgotten just how classy Roque is. Given that he's surplus to requirements at Man City; and subject of course to his fitness [when he was crunched yesterday, I'm sure most of us were thinking, "Oh, No!"], I'd like us to re-sign him permanently in the summer. I understand what people are saying about having Rocky and MB Diouf up-front; but, as Kalinic is our player [not loaned], I'd prefer to see him and Roque start the majority of games where we're playing two up-front because I think that Roque can pass on his experience to Kalinic and improve him in the way that Andy Cole used to with Jonathan Stead.

Again like someone else posted, what TV couldn't capture was the buzz round the ground. I can't have been the only one to have made my way home from the game with a real spring in my step, as much because of the way we won the game [riding our luck, to be sure - they should have had a penalty] as because we'd won.

In all aspects of life, I try to be both a "glass half full" person as well as someone who tries to see both sides of the argument. So I know that, when other teams have played their games in hand on us, we'll almost certainly not be as high in the table as we are this morning; on the other hand we have got the points safely in the bag. And who's to say that all the teams below us are going to take maximum points from their games in hand? Let's just savour the moment and look forward to better times.

[Parsonblue]

Most overhyped manager in history

And without him we would now be a Championship club. It's time to move on, Sam has gone but that's no reason to forget the superb job he did at this club. Hopefully, Kean will be able to build on the solid foundations that Sam left behind. During Sam's time at the club he developed the links between Academy-Reserves and first team and hopefully we will reap the rewards of that work over the next few years.

[Rainmaker]

Jemal Johnson, Jay Mceveley, Matt Derbyshire I think.

Wasnt Hughes fault that they werent as good as todays youngsters.

McEveley's debut was under Souey, wasn't it?

[Amo]

McEveley's debut was under Souey, wasn't it?

Yeah, but you can replace McEveley with Olsson.

[92er]

great subs and shuffling to take jerome thomas out of the game. well done kean.

Salgado going off seemed to be because he was asking to come off-as though he had an injury.

[Rainmaker]

On his performance yesterday and with a few players returning i would think that MGP may be looking at a wee spell on the bench. Not only is he one pace, the main reason why he was brought in off the wing in the first place, but his ball retention and lethargic passing is dire and also putting the team under needless pressure.

To be fair, he did put i a few good passes yesterday, including the pass which Kalinic chestet to Hoilett for the second goal.

[alexanders]

Salgado going off seemed to be because he was asking to come off-as though he had an injury.

You may be right, but I think it was a tactical substitution. Salgado shook his head when he was taken off - didnt he?

The Norwegian commentators were praising Kean yesterday. They praised the tactical sub to take Jerome Thomas out of the game(`Higlighted when Olsson with his pace followed him and broke up the attack right after).

They also praised Rovers for the game they played yesterday where without going into the discussion about Sam one of the Norwegian commentators said it was a lot more fun to follow Rovers after New Years compared to before New Years.

They also praised Jermaine Jones. Talking about his engine. He ran, ran, ran and ran.

Considering the hoofball we played a little bit yesterday. They seem to think that we have one of the best long distance kickers in our goal and I agree. We have to use Robinsons strenghts. Both defensively and offensively. Hence mixing it up is the best way forward.

[CAPT KAYOS]

[riding our luck, to be sure - they should have had a penalty]

Funny this , no mention has been given to the penalty we should have had on Roberts where he was held then had his shoulder pulled and to be fair to Roberts he did try to stay on his feet also and get the ball but was prevented - maybe not as clear cut but in the realms of things for what penalties are given for nowadays was certainly a definite one.

[Montfort]

I think that Roque can pass on his experience to Kalinic and improve him

Spot on. Thought Roque was class and that Kalinic can make a quantum leap forward playing along side of him. I think that probably Kalinic's game has been effected in a negative way by all the times that we have expected him to charge around upfront on his own like a mad fool.

[47er]

Speaking as a firm supporter of Allardyce, I believe we need to put the Sam issue to bed.

The facts were that he saved us from the Ince debacle and was well on the way to guiding us to a third successive higher league position on a crap budget.

However, the style of football was hard to warm to, speaking personally I just want to win, but I appreciate that many felllow Blues were less than enthused.

Whatever the circumstances were that found Kean in the hotseat, it is time to move on and appreciate that he has been a calming influence at a dificult time and we are seeing some stellar perfomances at Ewood.

But, give Allardyce the respect he deserves.

Agree with every word.

[92er]

.

On the manager front I thought he did ok with his subs Nzonzi for Dunn was correct but he should have moved Pedersen out wide - not put Nzonzi there.

Good move taking off Salgado, he was struggling but in fairness he was left isolated by Hoilett not always tracking back.

We were debating where Pedersen would go once the substitution was made.

I suspected he would stay in the middle as he no longer seems to be considered a wide player.

Salgado was attracting the attention of the bench for a while before he went off. I though he was concerned about another player going off, but the he pointed to his own leg and went off soon after.

[47er]

Funny this , no mention has been given to the penalty we should have had on Roberts where he was held then had his shoulder pulled and to be fair to Roberts he did try to stay on his feet also and get the ball but was prevented - maybe not as clear cut but in the realms of things for what penalties are given for nowadays was certainly a definite one.

We could have had one for a tug on Samba too.

[LeChuck]

To be fair, he did put i a few good passes yesterday, including the pass which Kalinic chestet to Hoilett for the second goal.

He did make plenty of good passes, unfortunately he made a few sloppy ones that resulted in promising attacks breaking down. It only takes a couple of those to make people forget all the good things he does in the game.

[RoyRover]

I was very impressed with how we played yesterday and thought that a number of players had very good games. Hoilett was obviously the standout player. He's one of those players who you feel will make something happen every time he's on the ball. His ability to go past a man is great and he also has the eye for the good pass. He's still young and we shouldn't be expecting this type of performance every week, but he's made positive impact. I thought Jermaine Jones had an excellent game too. He broke up the play well, kept the ball, passed it well and covered a lot of ground. His ability could make a real difference to our midfield. Dunn had his best game for a long time. I still worry about his fitness levels, but he looked far more creative yesterday than in other games.

Santa Cruz and Kalinic looked like they had a decent understanding going. I was surprised that Kalinic was taken off for Roberts, who was awful and should be sold. These two could be our strikers for the years to come and I hope to see more of them together. Santa Cruz had a couple of decent chances, had some nice touches, but was understandably lacking in game sharpness at certain times. Olsson had another fine game, is a very exciting player to watch and is getting better all the time. It was good to see N'Zonzi making his return to the team. He's another player that could make a big difference to our team for the rest of the season. I can't forget mentioning Paul Robinson who was outstanding again.

I suppose what please me most about the game was that it was the first time in a long time that we looked like a team committed to playing football. Our passing and movement was good, we had pace out wide and we created a number of chances from play and set pieces. I'm glad that we still use our long throw tactic and bring Samba up for most set pieces, because we are a big team and should use this our advantage. But this is clearly no longer the only attacking threat we have which is great. I had to laugh when after the game Ian Holloway was talking about his tactics of passing and keeping the ball, because when you pass along the ground, if the pass is accurate then you have nearly 100% chance of retaining the ball. When you just lump it long, you only have 50% chance of keeping it. Sam Allardyce was sitting right next to him and didn't say a word!

I agree in theory with those who say we need to get some players out the door. The obvious ones to me would be Grella, Andrews, Roberts and maybe Diouf. However with the injury crisis we have been facing in midfield over the past couple of weeks, it may be wise to keep one of the midfielders around just in case, especially with Linganzi and Goulon going out on loan.

[92er]

and sam gave debuts to all the youngsters - something hughes never did.

I'm sure MH gave Olsson his debut.