I always thought that my worst memory of Bramall Lane would be witnessing that Jason Wilcox penalty miss back in 1993, but the FA Cup loss two weeks ago definitely runs it close. When the draw was made, I had little in the way of expectations, but as football has a way of doing, as the game got closer that old adversary hope reared his head and I thought “maybe”, and “why not”?
 

But, alas, it was not to be. 
 

Rovers gave a fantastic performance that all associated with Blackburn Rovers Football Club can be proud of, and on another day, we’d have a trip to Wembley in the diary – half an inch to the left and Hedges effort goes in off the post; half an inch to the right and the shot deflects off Gallagher for a corner; half an inch of competence and Jack Robinson gets a second yellow for his foul on Ryan Hedges early in the first half. Take the positives though – save £300 we’d have spent watching us get beaten by Manchester City, and spend it on a trip for the play-off final instead. 
 

No more distractions, just nine games to seal our place in the top six.

Ahead of the away game to Birmingham, Rovers sit in 5th place on 61 points, 9 points off second place and automatic promotion, and more importantly, 4 points off 7th, with a game in hand on everyone from 3rd place to West Brom in 9th who are currently sat on 55 points. For those who still have flashbacks to the end of last season, we’re currently 3 points ahead of where we were last season, on the back of 3 wins in 4, rather than 1 win in 4.

Looking at projections, before the QPR game on 25th February, Rovers needed an average of 2 points per game to hit the magic number of 74 points – 8 points from the four games before the international break to keep up the pace. Rovers picked up 9, putting them one point ahead of the chains. 
In my optimistic prediction (where we get to 74 points by the end of the season) I had us only getting 6 points by this stage, and in my pessimistic approach, 4 points. Here it comes again, hope, we are 2 points ahead of even my optimism – my heart tells me it’s time to believe, my head tells me this can only go one way.

So, who’s up next? During April Rovers have games against Birmingham City, Norwich City, Huddersfield Town, Hull City and Coventry City, before finishing with local derbies against Preston and Burnley, and a potential play off decider against Luton. After the three league games of March, April is comparatively hectic with eight games deciding the fate of Rovers’ season.

To maintain the required projection for 74 points and top 6, Rovers need to pick up 13 points before the end of the season – the mathematically astute of you will see that 2 points from each of the remaining the 9 games would give us 18 points and leave us on a healthy 78 points – the joy of the decimal place! 
22 points from 13 games is 1.69 points, so I’ve even built in my own mechanism for being overly conservative. On the face of it 13 points from 9 games is incredibly do-able, if it was any other time, four wins and a draw from nine games would be seen as an awful return, but at this stage I look at the fixtures and start to second guess every result – what if we don’t show up? What if the players haven’t recovered from the Sheffield United loss? What if Brereton-Diaz is already on the yellow submarine? I just keep reminding myself, four wins and a draw from nine games and we should be almost over the line for the top six – that leaves four games we could potentially lose.

Optimistically, from the next eight games, I have us picking up 15 points – wins against Birmingham City (away), Hull City (home), Coventry City (home) and Luton Town (home), and draws against Norwich City (home), Huddersfield Town (away) and Preston North End (home). 

All seems very do-able, then you realise that it means we only lose one league game this month, against Burnley, meaning that by the time we play Burnley on 25th April, we will have gone eleven games unbeaten since the defeat at Stoke – even with that defeat to Stoke, that would be one defeat in sixteen – a fantastic run of form, top 6 form; but it wouldn’t be the Rovers way would it?!  [No - Ed 😆]

Pessimistically, I have us picking up 13 points from the next 8 games – the only difference being we only get a point at Birmingham City. Not the end of the world, after all, 13 points is enough to meet the magic number with a game to spare.

Back when I started this, I made my predictions and said I wasn’t going to revise them – I did the same last year and had Middlesbrough going on the run that Forest ended up doing. This year I saw Birmingham as a poor side, especially after the FA Cup games, and I thought Huddersfield Town would pick, up especially after the appoint of Neil Warnock, which is why I only had us picking up a point on Easter Monday – but as I look at it now, I’d probably switch these results round and be happier with a point at St Andrews, and all 3 at The John Smith’s Stadium.

Ultimately, our home form is what I see as getting us over the line, with wins against Hull, Coventry and Luton being paramount to our ambitions. Our record to date this season at Ewood reads played 18, won 13, drawn 1 and lost 4, so a further 3 wins and a draw (Norwich) isn’t beyond the realms of possibility.

Here’s hoping that when I return at the end of April to preview our last game of the (regular) season, away at Millwall, the 74 points mark has been achieved (hopefully smashed) and the game against Millwall is a triviality – imagine having to go to The New Den, on the last day of the season, with both sides needing points to make the play-offs, potentially at the expense of the other? In the words of Tom Skinner: “I’m starting to get a bit shaky”.

Read the previous instalments in the series here:-

PART 1

PART 2