Watto’s Preview: Blackburn Rovers vs Birmingham City

Trips to Lancashire generally yield very little joy for Blues and Blackburn is a particularly poor source of points. Blues last victory at Ewood was in 1952. Even yours truly would struggle to remember that one. Blues and Blackburn have had recent acrimony based on the Robbie Savage affair, aided and abetted by Mark Hughes and Mark Bowen.  To make an enemy of the otherwise affable Steve Bruce takes a special kind of skulduggery and while Savage has indicated some regret over that incident, the two Marks never have. Having left the Rovers for the greener grass of Man City they were dumped as unceremoniously as they had dumped the Ewood outfit.

The current Blackburn Rovers is a very different beast, run as it is now by the honest and forthright Sam Allardyce. Sam’s teams are always hard to beat and are generally unattractive. That is well suited to the surroundings of East Lancashire and it takes a team with a commitment and resilience to go and get something there. As last week Blues’ fans were able to run their eye over the opposition on Sky’s Sunday offering. Chelsea was unable to show enough of those qualities to beat Sam’s team.

The parallels between Blackburn and Sunderland are remarkable as both earned 1-1 home draws against top sides before Blues visit. As Sunderland showed on Saturday it lifted their performance level against us and Blues could not cope with the initial surge. The majority of the game was controlled by Blues but the overall domination was not enough to reverse the 2 goal lead the host enjoyed.

Blackburn will almost certainly present the same kind of problems and if Blues start the way they have in the last two games then the bleak record that they have in these parts will inevitably continue. This is a tough week for Alex’s boys and as I pointed out he does not let Blues get beaten twice in a row very often. Blues have established themselves in a mid table limbo area of the table. They are above the relegation fodder but remain just outside the Europa League contenders. Alex has a massive task in keeping the season going. To maintain this position, which is a very unexciting one it has to be said, Blues must beat these sides that are hovering beneath them. To progress they need to beat those above, but more of that another day.

The Blackburn visit is a massive test of the manager’s credentials. The Rovers have not been beaten at home for 12 games. To win at Ewood Park for the first time in nearly 60 years would be an achievement in itself. To repair the damage done on Saturday would be nice and a positive result would re-ignite the Blues’ season and get us going forward once more.

Blues are well into the fourth quarter of the season now and the fans are now thinking once more of transfers windows and trophy signings. The players will show between now and the end of the season if they want to be part of the New Blues or they want the comfort of a transfer to less demanding circumstances.

By Alan Watton

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