Ploy of the Rovers?

As the English Premier League enters its busiest (I would say self-destructive, given the performances of most PL players in the summer tournaments) part of the season, there is much that is ill with the game. The misguided Anfield defence of Luis Suarez’s offensiveness towards Patrice Evra with words that hold a racist connotation. John Terry being charged with racial aggravation and FIFA’s stumbling approach to reform, unless you are Manchester City-affiliated there is little Christmas cheer (and even they have to contend with a Europe League plod in the new year).


Eccentric and callous club owners drive fans of those afflicted teams to distraction and nowhere – in Lancashire – is this more apparent than at Blackburn Rovers. While turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, it seems chickens do for relegation. Venkys, the owners of Rovers who have bought the club using leveraged loans, have kept Steve Kean, presumably as a lightning rod, though like much of their other initiatives this has been a failure. Kean’s bluffness against the torrent of abuse he receives from the stands is valiant but he is not up to the job and holding out for a payoff is not at all noble. He won’t resign, Venkys won’t sack him. It is maddening, even to a neutral. He has had 38 games – the equivalent of a whole season – and his team has amassed a meagre 32 points over that run, which is trapdoor form. This born number two should not have been manager in the first place but Venkys workings made North Korea look like a rational, well-ordered state.

The betting is that Mark Hughes will not be long in waiting to return to the club for the third time (first as player, then as manager). So much for Hughes walking out on Fulham because he believed that the London club lacked the cash to fund his ambitions. He touted himself as a big-club manager but no-one he thought worthy of his self-regard has picked up the phone. Whoopsy! Maybe he should have stayed at Fulham for another season. If he comes to Blackburn, he will be taking a backward step, illustrating starkly his failure, in a bid to relaunch his managerial prospects. He had good times at Blackburn after initial fire-fighting. With the financial situation of a club up to its eyes in debt inflicted by the owners, it would always be a precarious highwire act of fighting off the tug of gravity. Rovers have punched above their weight for a long time (on gate receipts alone) but a spell in the Championship could be a long one.