The Rovers Return

Steven N'Zonzi celebrates scoring at Arsenal, chased by, among others, fellow youth star Martin Olsson.

Most successful teams of the past are assembled around a core group of established, senior and experienced team members, while bringing in top quality youth players to learn from said core senior players and, eventually, carry on in their place when they move on.

Sam Allardyce, somewhat covertly, is doing this now. It’s been a bit more than a year since he took the reins at Ewood and, having spent his first season concentrating on avoiding the drop, he was then able to begin moulding the side as he wants it.

Over the course of this season, we’ve seen the emergence of some great young players. Martin Olsson, Steven N’Zonzi, Junior Hoilett and Nikola Kalinic are the four main stars.

All of whom have played, I think, a much bigger role than they were expected to at the start of the season. N’Zonzi was brought in to play the odd game while developing into a better player. In the end, through a succession of injured midfielders and his own solid performances in that role, he has become a first team regular.

Kalinic was brought in, again, as an up and coming player. Although I think he was supposed to play a big role for us. However, the lack of form in Roberts and Di Santo, injuries and the continued bad attitude of porky Benni meant he was asked to come into the fold a lot sooner. After a shaky start – and his debut at Sunderland, laughable as it was, now seems a distant nightmare – he has developed into an excellent striker with a very bright future.

Olsson was probably not really in Sam’s plans at the start of the season. His performances at left back under Hughes and Ince were poor. He never really seemed to be a player that was going to make it. Then, Allardyce threw him into midfield and it transformed the young Swede’s career. He is now a very important part of our steadily improving side.

Junior Hoilett has been at the club since he was 13, although nobody had heard of him until just before the start of the season. Suddenly, reports emerged that someone who had played for Rovers for so long was denied a work permit to return from a loan spell at St Pauli of Germany. Rovers were clearly desperate to bring the young lad back and pushed until it was secured. Since then, Hoilett has been a major player for us in the Premier League this season. He has all the key qualities a young player needs, particularly blistering pace, and the potential to develop in other areas, particularly strength and intelligence!

As well as those four, our first team squad includes Amine Linganzi, another N’Zonzi-esque midfielder who has had rave reviews for his performances in the reserves, Aaron Doran, midfielder, currently on loan at Orient but is promising, Alan Judge, has had positive reviews fro our youth management and has been impressive for Plymouth in the Championship, Phil Jones, defender turned midfielder who has emerged on the scene this season and Frank Fielding, England Under-21 keeper who has become a bit of an on loan journeyman over recent seasons.

Add into this mix the likes of Gavin Gunning, Andrew Haworth, Alex Marrow and Marcus Marshall, as well as youth team players like Jackson Ramm and Michael Potts who are all earning rave reviews while out on loan or playing in the youth side, and the future looks reasonably bright.

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