[Archived] Blackburn Rovers v Sheffield Wednesday Preview

[Mike Graham]

May I add that the BBE booing Murphy coming on the pitch was a disgrace. I am sure some will deny it happened.

[Mike E]

May I add that the BBE booing Murphy coming on the pitch was a disgrace. I am sure some will deny it happened.

After all he said about rovers 2yrs ago, I'd actively encourage it. Esp if he calls that 'effort'. I've had quicker bowel movements.

[RoyRover]

Good win, but it sounds like yet another rotten performance. We need someone in fast to take control of things. On paper we have some good players for this league, but if there is no desire, no game plan, no effort, then it means sweet f.a.

As for Gary Flitcroft being named manager, that has to be some sort of joke. Are the owners trying to wind up the Rovers fans? We have had too many underqualified and unqualified people through the door to shake a stick at over the last few years. With the way things have gone and with all that needs doing, getting Gary Flitcroft into right the wrongs is spelling disaster.

[1864roverite]

Just back having spent my time at Ewood with Prestonb Blue and Ewoodbehappy. What a total disgrace of a performance for our club.

Granted we stole 3 points and have now moved UNCONVINCINGLY back into the top 5 BUT please please understand that type of performance will never be tolerated.

The defence was at sea at times.

The central midfield was non existant. There was oceans of space in the middle because Lowe and Etuhu cannot play together.

There was no service or support whatsoever for CKR or Rhodes.

We stole the points because Wednesday overran us time after time and as they were so poor up front we got lucky once again.

I dont agree with booing Murphy. KEANSCUM has gone so give him another chance. The game was crying our for him in the second half.

Shabby, tell your bosses we need an experienced MANAGER not Flitcroft NOT an inexperienced team.

Ewood was more deadwood than ever. The thrill has gone, the buzz is none existant. Steve KEAN is guilty of murdering our club.

[G Somerset Rover]

Kean's not alone in this, there are a host of 'em who have brought our club to its knees. Kean, Venkys, JA, the Walkers Trust for selling to these clowns, hell even the God damn players.

[Mike Graham]

I did not see Hendry there tonight.

Has he been locked up yet?

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Kean's not alone in this, there are a host of 'em who have brought our club to its knees. Kean, Venkys, JA, the Walkers Trust for selling to these clowns, hell even the God damn players.

Very true.

[ABBEY]

he was there

[braddock]

We look good when we actually go forward. We just don't seem to want to commit players up the pitch which makes us look incredibly limp the majority of attacks. We are desperately missing a driving force in the centre. Dreary performance, clean sheet, three points.

[johnradfordsubbuteo]

Why did anyone applaud the players at the end? Am I missing something?

[ABBEY]

why cant managers see when we attack the crowd ,atmosphere lifts and lifting it needs .That was as bad a game ive ever seen .£ points yes but yet again very lucky. It looked we were trying to lose at points with passes going in the stands 30 yards astray, foul throws and stuff. Having said that how the hell was the UFC takedown not a pen .

[braddock]

why cant managers see when we attack the crowd ,atmosphere lifts and lifting it needs .That was as bad a game ive ever seen .£ points yes but yet again very lucky. It looked we were trying to lose at points with passes going in the stands 30 yards astray, foul throws and stuff. Having said that how the hell was the UFC takedown not a pen .

I thought you said you weren't violent?

[OJRovers]

I didn't go but it sounded like most other games this season; we started off ok, scored, then proceeded to sit back and not push on to score another.

Sounded like Dunn was doing well til he went off.

We are never going to be great under black, so I'm just glad we won.

It will be a different team under a proper manager with some organisation and confidence.

Surely Gomes could've come on and steadied things?

[den]

God that was awful.

Best squad in the Championship? We made Sheff Weds look like Barca. Man for man, second half they were better than us.

£27 to watch that, doubt I'll be doing that again.

[braddock]

God that was awful.

Best squad in the Championship? We made Sheff Weds look like Barca. Man for man, second half they were better than us.

£27 to watch that, doubt I'll be doing that again.

Wahey! What a surprise.

[Mike Graham]

God that was awful.

Best squad in the Championship? We made Sheff Weds look like Barca. Man for man, second half they were better than us.

£27 to watch that, doubt I'll be doing that again.

Agreed Den, we were absolute keening sh!te! This division is the pits and for the taking by any half decent team.....which we are not.

[Drover]

Back from the game and although we got the three points there was still lots to worry about tonight.

As has been mentioned in the podcasts the squad is nowhere near fit enough. By 60 minutes the majority of the players looked absolutely knackered. Its not like we were made to run about that much in the first half. In fact aside from a spell in the middle of it I felt we had a lot of possession and that sheff wed were made to do a lot of running and yet after the hour mark they were first to everything.

Don't know whether its a direct result of the above but the pressure we exert on the opposition when they have the ball is abysmal. We sit incredibly deep far too often and the time and space some of their players were given is frankly a joke. I mean, yes some teams sit deep and let to opponents move it about a bit on the halfway line but tonight there were several instances of players not even being pressed on the edge of our own box. A better team would have done a lot more damage to us tonight.

Robinson didn't have a great deal to do tonight but I thought his claiming of crosses was actually fairly good. However, thought his distribution was terrible especially his kicking which is something he is supposed to be good at. Dunn was running the show for the 20 minutes he was on. Not remotely quick but he doesn't half get up some momentum and isnt afraid to take on his man. Olsson on the other hand seemed quite the opposite, used to like the way he always took on the rb but tonight he didn't do it anywhere near enough and was rightly subbed. CKR didn't really impress me either. He doesn't have the skill of Hoillet or the tenacity of Diouf and just generally mopes about. Think he was pretty close to being sent off for dissent as well near the end.

Glad we used 3 subs today and I actually thought Black made 3 good subs at good times. How many times did we see Kean trying to influence a game by throwing on his one sub on 88 minutes? Rochina showed both his good and bad sides today I thought. At least he got to play in a CAM / CF role for once as opposed to the right wing or something.

All in all Sheff Wed were rubbish (bar their number 11, seemed half decent on the right) and we should really be putting 3 goals past them at home. Also thought the ref was absolutley terrible today for both sides, made countless mistakes and missed so many shirt pulls yet awarded so many soft free kicks it was unreal.

[joey_big_nose]

If flitcroft is named manager then I just don't know. There can be only two motivating factors. 1) He's cheap. 2) They think because he is a former player he will get the fans on side.

[RevidgeBlue]

First 20 minutes we were excellent. That was the sort of "new manager bounce" effect I would have expected for the away games or the Wolves game. The players looked much more up for it, we were pressing the ball, the passing was crisp and one touch and if we hadn't been guilty of overplaying situations on more than one occasion we could have put the game comfortably out of sight. It was almost as if the players knew the appointment of a new manager was imminent and were trying to impress him.

Unfortunately as the half more on we started tailing off more and more. And the least said about the second half the better. Same old same old sitting back letting the opponents come on to us and in the end a very streaky victory.

I thought as usual Etuhu was very very good, and as usual he got no help whatsoever from his partner, on this occasion Lowe rather than Murphy. Can't see anything in Lowe as a midfielder at all tbh.

Orr has to be one of the worst players I've seen in a Rovers shirt. Can't defend, doesn't add anything going forward, committed a couple of pointless little fouls in his own penalty area first half which on another night might have been pulled up.

Not at all impressed with CKR either since his return from injury, he seems to have turned into a bit of a show pony full of useless little tricks and flicks and flouncing around like Kevin the teenager when results don't go his way.

Rochina's quality for me stands out like a sore thumb in this Division. Yes he is prone to giving the ball away on occasion but he more than makes up for that with his attacking impetus and his choice of pass should improve if he gets an extended run.

Rhodes was once again completely isolated. I'm not having any criticism of him as on the rare ocasions he gets the ball I think he looks a quality player.

No need whatsoever to boo Murphy before he came on. Completely uncalled for.

Great 3 points from what turned out to be a poor performance. Perhaps the players were cacking themselves at first hearing a new manager was coming in then relaxed when they heard the rumours were about Flitcroft.

Flitcroft, I mean seriously. Is someone having a giraffe?

[jim mk2]

JITTERY ROVERS WORRY BLACK

By Dominic Farrell, Press Association Sport

Blackburn Rovers caretaker manager Eric Black believes his side must overcome problems with anxiety in order to mount a successful challenge in the npower Championship this season.

Grant Hanley's close-range strike from David Dunn's fifth-minute cross proved enough for Rovers to claim a first win in six matches, but an enterprising first half-hour regressed into a turgid display after the break when Wednesday made most of the running.

Black, in charge for a fifth game following Steve Kean's resignation last month, feels trials and tribulations on and off the pitch have taken their toll despite tonight's victory moving Rovers back into the play-off places.

``I think we started extremely brightly and I thought 'there's a bit of confidence coming back','' he said.

``We scored, things had gone to plan and then for whatever reason - there are obvious reasons - a bit of anxiety starts to come on the play, there's a bit of anxiety in the spectators.

``There's an anxiety that arrives when we're trying to retain that lead and we need to retain the ball better. We can't invite that type of pressure on ourselves and that's something we're going to have to try and resolve.

``Hopefully it (winning) makes a big difference. We've gone from 11th to fifth. They've worked hard tonight - I've got to admit I couldn't have asked much more of them.

``But we have to resolve this anxiety-type feeling that invites pressure on us.''

Rovers truncated search for Kean's successor continues to rumble on and Black answered now-familiar questions over his own immediate future in good humour.

When asked how long he expected his temporary stint in the Ewood Park hotseat to continue, the former Birmingham and Sunderland coach laughed and added: ``I don't know, I've no idea, I'm just focusing on....I know it sounds boring and repetitive, but tomorrow morning we have to start preparing them again.

``Saturday's game at Watford's my only target and that's all I'm looking at.''

Wednesday are now winless in nine league games and lie second-bottom with games against fellow relegation zone incumbents Ipswich and Peterborough up next.

Boss Dave Jones was left to rue his side's profligacy.

``We've got to put the ball in the back of the net. We've done everything but put the ball in the back of the net,'' he said.

``Take away the first 10 minutes of the game and I think we've absolutely slaughtered them. But it's that final third, that final delivery, that final little pass that's letting us down.

``We fell asleep and we didn't start for 10 minutes, but after that we've took the game to them.

``It's frustrating because they're so close to it and I feel for them. They are really working hard to try and get it right.

``We've come here to a team that's just come out of the Premier League and, unless I'm watching a completely different game I thought we absolutely pulverised them for 80-odd minutes.''

[m1st]

I didn't go but it sounded like most other games this season; we started off ok, scored, then proceeded to sit back and not push on to score another.

Sounded like Dunn was doing well til he went off.

We are never going to be great under black, so I'm just glad we won.

It will be a different team under a proper manager with some organisation and confidence.

Surely Gomes could've come on and steadied things?

Hear, hear. That's how the Radio 5 Live Sports Extra commentary made it sound to me, too. For the majority of the second half, it sounded as though we were defending deeper and deeper; it gave the impression that it would only be a metter of time before we conceded one. Good job for us that their forwards were so crap.

[DE.]

``We've come here to a team that's just plummeted out of the Premier League after being torn apart by rank bad management and horrendous ownership and, unless I'm watching a completely different game I thought we absolutely pulverised them for 80-odd minutes.''

Absolutely Dave.

[47er]

Interesting that Black can keep 2 clean sheets in 5 games though and come within a whisker of making it 3. Kean went months and months without doing that.

It shows that the manager IS very important and that a good manager might be able to do something with this squad. Venkys please note.

[Waggy76]

I did not see Hendry there tonight.

Has he been locked up yet?

I must admit , I wondered that !

[ABBEY]

I thought you said you weren't violent?

christ almighty its like having dog kean on your shoe.

I must admit , I wondered that !

he was there took shooting in the warm ups.