The Rovers Return

This shit situation was exascerbated by the fact when the weekend finally came around and Premier League football resumed, there was no Rovers.

Combine this with the fact it’s exactly a month since we last had a game at Ewood, and we are all really looking forward to tonight.

The Sunderland match is rarely a classic, and as the Mackems appear to be in a similar situation to us goals-wise, it doesn’t have the hallmarks of one tonight.

However, Rovers could be boosted by the return of Dunny, who is expected to play at least some part in the match.

We’ve missed Dunn’s goal threat this season and could do with him remaining injury free for the rest of the season.

Keith Andrews misses out again through injury, as does Grella – as you may have expected. While Ryan Nelsen is also a doubt.

Darren Bent, who has apparently scored 83 per cent of Sunderland’s goals this season, is injured – Hurrah.

If you’re daft enough to read anything into the league table at the moment, it doesn’t make pleasant reading. However, a win in this game can potentially see us rise nine places in the Premier League, to seventh.

A defeat, however, would leave us three points behind Bolton and two behind Blackpool and Stoke – sides we really do need to be keeping pace with, even at this early stage. Read more »

Since my last post, apart from a fantastic day out and win at Blackpool, things have been relatively bleak.

It’s nothing new, really. Sam has stuck with the same tactics that somehow got us to 10th last season. It’s not pretty, but it can be effective.

It can also be pretty rubbish.

We’ve developed the uncanny knack of not scoring goals. And when we do score them, we have developed another talent – allowing the opposition to come back and equalise, usually in the second half.

Negatives aside, it’s not all doom and gloom – we’ve got a trip to Anfield coming up, so there’s a guaranteed three points.

There are whisperings of discontent among the Rovers faithful at the current management of the side, but what’s new? Take a look back at last December, three defeats against the top sides in the league saw us stuck in the lower reaches of the Premier League. Talk began. Allardyce had “three games to save his job”. It was all bullshit.

At the end of the day, maybe we have just become slow starters. Read more »

It was a poor game, but Big Sam knew how to carve out a a win in a match that, on paper, seemed very tough.

It took a while to get our heads round the formation when the teams came up and Samba, Nelsen AND Jones were playing. But Phil Jones showed his versatility with a rock solid display in a holding midfield role just ahead of the more experienced Nelsen and Samba.

We took an early advantage after dominating the initial exchanges when Tim Howard dropped an El Hadji Diouf header and Niko Kalinic, who took so long last season to break his duck, swivelled on the edge of the box to finish well and give Rovers the lead.

It was by no means easy for the Croat who had his back to goal when receiving the American’s early Christmas present. It’s so good for him to get this goal early on in the season and can only give him more confidence in the 37 games to come.

After taking the lead, we inevitably sat back a bit, allowing Everton to attack a bit more. But they had no way through with the trio of Samba, Nelsen and Jones seeming unbeatable. And when they went down the flanks they had Givet and Salgado to deal with who were both also excellent. Read more »

It came as a shock to pretty much everyone, I would guess Frank Fielding included, when the Rovers youngster was picked for the full England squad today.

And it has been said by some that maybe his inclusion is a sarcastic retort by Fabio Capello at Paul Robinson, the man who snubbed him after his England recall earlier this week.

It’s unlikely Fielding, or Watford’s Scott Loach who also received a call-up after Ben Foster pulled out of the squad with an injury, will see any action. That is unless Joe Hart adds to the England chief’s misery.

Personally, I think it’s a great idea to include players like this in the squad.

I’ve thought for a while that the answer to some vital transfer money lay in our goalkeeper situation. We have three experienced stoppers, all of whom could be first choice for a top flight club, vying for the number one jersey at Ewood.

There’s only one man who’s ever going to keep that jersey, though, and that’s Robbo.

Jason Brown has stepped in on a number of occassions for the odd match and has always looked comfortable. When Rovers sold Brad Friedel to Aston Villa two years ago, I said at the time we should simply promote Brown, and I firmly believe he would have been a solid first choice keeper for Rovers. Read more »

In this summer’s World Cup, Paul Robinson was excluded from the England squad.

I’ve gone over it several times, verbally and on this blog, to anyone who will listen … And those that really would rather not.

Robbo has been in fine form since escaping his Spurs nightmare. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still a hero at Tottenham, but he had to move on to forget about the so-called blunder for England – how can it be his fault when the ball bobbled over his foot? – which resulted in his massive dip in form.

Since signing for Rovers, Robinson has become a real fans’ favourite.

Rovers fans have always had a great relationship with goalkeepers. Read more »

Obviously, if they’re good enough and their country is participating in the World Cup, they are in South Africa, but what about those that are not?

I recently came across a blog belonging to a certain Norwegian named Morten Gamst Pedersen.

It doesn’t say much at the moment, and looks as though it may be reasonably new, but I’ve stuck it in my links section and hopefully he’ll be blogging throughout the season.

Here is a recent post he’s done about a tour of Northern Norway …

In early May me, Stig and Marchello went on a tour around northern Norway. Stig is from Finnmark, so he was helping me guide our English friend Marchello. Marchello has been in Bodø once before but he has never seen Finnmark. So I was really looking forward to show him where I come from. We started in Vadsø where I come from. Marchello is half English and half Italian, so he is accustomed to slightly warmer temperatures in early May than Vadsø can offer. But he was undaunted by 5 degrees and a bit rain from the east, so we started with a tour of the capital of Finnmark. Marchello owns several restaurants, including my favorite, the San Carlo in Manchester which is the restaurant that I eat in almost every day, so it was exciting to offer him some of the local delicacies. My cousin Jarno had prepared some seagull eggs, whale meat, reindeer meat, seal meat, king crab and smoked salmon. Read more »

Ghana 1-1 Australia

Brett Emerton played the full 90 minutes as the Aussies put their disappointing 4-0 spanking at the hands of Germany behind them with a solid performance and a good result against Ghana.

A side considered by many to be one of the best African teams at the World Cup, Ghana could have been expected to give Australia a lesson or two, but Australia showed they aren’t at this tournament just to make up the numbers.

They even had the audacity to take the lead, Brett Holman somewhat fortuitously hitting home after Mark Bresciano’s free kick was fumbled by Ghana keeper Richard Kingson.

Unfortunately for Australia, Harry Kewell handled the ball off the line, landing himself with a red card and Ghana with a penalty which Asamoah Gyan scored, precipitating the ridiculously over-exuberant celebrations that also took place in their first game against Serbia.

I’m all for goal celebrations, but only if the goal deserves it, and, in my humble opinion, scoring a penalty does not merit a 25-minute celebration.

Ghana dominated the shot count – often a deceptive figure if you ask me – but it was Australia who had the best chances, their best coming when Luke Wilkshire fired straight at Kingson when through on goal.

A draw was not ideal for Australia, but Brett Emerton and Vince Grella’s side do still harbour hopes of a place in the second round, although that requires them beating Serbia and Ghana beating Germany. Read more »

England fans were left in shock on Saturday night as the unthinkable happened. We didn’t beat the Yanks.

Over-the-top expectations once again meant that the opening to our World Cup campaign is a disaster and all Brits have a sour taste in their mouths.

Yes it was a disappointing result, but with Algeria and Slovenia to play, surely we’ll finish the group with seven points?

Put it this way, if England don’t qualify then they’re definitely not as good as everyone thinks they are.

The States has gone overboard, as you can see from the front cover of the New York Post, pictured.

Back to the match itself, and it was a particularly disappointing display from England. I’m not going in for all this guff about America performing well and holding us to a draw.

We held ourselves to a draw, throwing away two vital points and making qualification that little bit more difficult.

Rob Green made an error. Fact. And I could go back to the Paul Robinson debate again here, but I won’t. I could say something about how Rob Green made more unforced errors than any other English keeper in the Premier League last season. But I won’t. And I definitely won’t mention, again, that Paul Robinson kept more clean sheets than any other English keeper in the Premier League last season. Read more »

Socceroos boss Pim Verbeek has been roundly criticised for opting to take a defensive approach, a tactic his side are not really used to, and the critics could be right.

Brett Emerton suffered as a result of this negative style, being subbed in the second half to make way for the more defensive Mile Jedinak in a move that could only be described as damage limitation.

I’ll be honest, having been out for a curry with a friend in London, we missed much of this match. Then, when we did finally get back and put the telly on, that substitution was made so I never actually saw Emerton touch the ball.

For that reason, I won’t insult you by talking about his individual performance, only that, from what I’ve read, he was about the best of a bad bunch.

What I will say about the match is that I cannot understand all the fuss over Tim Cahill’s red card. The Everton midfielder could have broken Schweinsteiger’s leg with a very clumsy challenge and deserved to go.

However, it certainly isn’t over for Australia. This was as much a fantastic performance from Germany as it was a disaster for the Socceroos.

If Germany have slapped Australia 4-0, they have the potential to smash Ghana and Serbia, while Australia have the group’s most difficult tie out of the way and can concentrate on trying to win their next two matches.

I’m not saying those games will be easy, but it’s no use thinking it’s all over after one setback.

Watch this space for a look at Lars Jacobsen’s efforts for Denmark against Holland, which is just kicking off as I write this

Before we get on with the real football that is next year’s Premier League season, there’s an international tournament to get out of the way.

No one really cares about it, but a few of the Rovers squad are involved, merely as a keep-fit exercise I presume, so it’s worth giving it a mention.

I do, of course, mean the football World Cup, and everyone’s excited.

Unfortunately for Rovers, a lot of our players haven’t quite made it. Keith Andrews’s Ireland, Morten Pedersen’s Norway and Zurab Khizanishvilli’s Georgia, among others, all failed to qualify, while Paul Robinson was not chosen for England and Pascal Chimbonda missed out on the France squad – no real surprise there.

Youngsters Martin Olsson and Niko Kalinic are both still in their national youth teams, Sweden and Croatia respectively, and Michel Salgado can’t find his walking stick.

However, four (soon to be three) Rovers stars will be hoping to bring glory to their nations.

Captain and centre back Ryan Nelsen will captain massive underdogs New Zealand, while Brett Emerton and soon-to-be-in-Turkey Vince Grella are in action for Australia and Lars Jacobsen will feature for Denmark.

New Zealand

Nelsen will have a job on trying to keep New Zealand in the competition beyond the group stages. Group E has pitched them against Paraguay, Slovakia and Italy, and as a realist you can’t see them progressing.

The lack of optimism isn’t helped by the fact their two best players are Nelsen and Plymouth striker Rory Fallon …

Still, every World Cup has a surprise package, and a couple of surprise results could see New Zealand surprise everyone. I doubt it, though. Read more »