Blackburn Rovers have become into one of the most entertaining teams in the nation, yet that hasn’t done much for our local supporter.
It’s the most thrilling show ever, or at least the most anxiety-inducing one, so roll up, roll up. The tent flaps are pulled back around 3 p.m. every Saturday, and the ringmaster, a cheeky Blackburn Rovers with a glint in his eye, invites you inside. Yes, Blackburn Rovers themselves are here; the famous performers themselves. However, it’s debatable if they entertain anyone who genuinely wants them to succeed.
My existence as a Blackburn supporter looked to be nothing more than a one-way ticket to an unending cycle of anguish and devastating despair, I wrote in a funny and somewhat depressing post last year. It was written not long after my team completely botched an impossible situation to miss the playoffs. All of that is still true, of course; it’s just that the Rovers are now a ton of fun, too, or at least everyone else finds them to be. They primarily trigger palpitations in me.
I’m well aware that our season will probably end in some sort of mid-table humiliation, but for the time being, our manager Jon Dahl Tomasson has reorganized his team into something more akin to a rollercoaster, an endless loop-the-loop highlight reel that has the spectator tearing their hair out and the neutral biting their fingernails.
Blackburn has only defeated Middlesbrough in the league this month, losing three of their last four games. Over the course of those games, they have given up 11 goals, almost all of which felt incredibly against the flow of play. Despite being by much the superior team from the get-go, they lost 3-0 against Plymouth. They outplayed Sunderland in the first half, but against all odds, they fell short by a score of 3-1. against least, the 4-3 loss against Ipswich Town was arguably a good representation of a ding-dong game.
And the results barely cover half of the tale. With their free-flowing cavalcade of rapid passes, darting dashes, and clever interplays, Rovers have been outstanding so far this season from a pure football perspective. The only small concern is their inability to consistently put the ball in the back of the net. Unfortunately, that is a significant aspect of football and has contributed to their current league standing, which is rather poor.
The findings’ portion of the narrative is, admittedly, a reasonable representation of what happened. Despite having the same personnel as before, Blackburn’s defense, which was rather resilient last year, is now dreadfully leaky. Tomasson is adamant about having his defense play technical, passing football, tossing the ball around to charging defenders like a lion-tamer daring his feline charge with a whip and an inverted chair. All of which functions reasonably well, but other, less instructive ideas like “dealing with crosses” and “second balls” appear to have been abandoned. The outcome was a string of wonderful opportunities that were presented as gifts to the appreciative opposition.
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