Season Preview - Blackburn Rovers

Quick Reminder, Real Life

What an ugly season. They dropped from 10th place in 2009/10 to 15th in the standings last season. They fired a solid if not spectacular manager in Big Sam and replaced him with Steve Kean who excites exactly nobody. They didn’t score well, they didn’t defend well. Really, the only thing that went even passably well was their defending at home which was the sixth most effective in the league. Sadly, their scoring at home was tied for second from the bottom so even the thing they did well didn’t help THAT much other than allowing them to avoid relegation.

Quick Reminder, Fantasy

A slight return to adequacy by Morten Gamst Pedersen and continued fantasy excellence from Christopher Samba were notable performances, as was the emergence of David "Junior" Hoillet. I suppose you could say Robbo rebounded from a long while in the fantasy wilderness. It would be stretching to get excited about much else as occasional fantasy stalwarts like Nelsen and Dunn were injured more frequently than usual.

Summer Changes

Paul Robinson Scores Goal Against Ben Foster

Neal's post about San Jose's goal against West Brom brough this magic moment to mind:

Season Preview: Blackburn Rovers

Overall Outlook - Speculation about a potentially deep-pocketed Indian buyer for the club aside, the hope for Rovers fans has to be that they can tread water this season as they search for more stable footing as Jack Walker's estate becomes less and less able to keep up financially with the rest of the league.  In Sam Allardyce they have a manager who is used to punching above his (ahem) weight with a limited budget but in the absence of any established strikers as of this writing you have to wonder if Big Sam and Rovers have what it takes to grind their way to safety while they wait for funds to arrive.  If David Dunn spends more than a few matches in the training room as opposed to on the pitch you have to think that Rovers will be in a relegation battle all season.

Robinson sidelined for a month

Blackburn Rovers have confirmed that goalkeeper Paul Robinson has been sidelined for a month.

Robinson limped out of Blackburn's weekend defeat to Tottenham and there were initial fears he would be out for six weeks.

The club have now confirmed that Robinson has torn a calf muscle and will be sidelined for four weeks.

Hard to imagine a Rovers keeper being cheaper than PRobbo, our enabler with upside. But Jason Brown is 4.02 and has matches against Chelsea and at Birmingham this week. The way he let Pavlyuchenko's shot go under him may give you pause, but along with Villa and Portsmouth, Rovers are the only two-gamers with both matches at home this week.

End of an almost era

Never did get to enjoy the "Isaksson for a buck" era to which I was so looking forward. First Casper and then Joe Hart kept the gloves for Citeh. And for whatever reason (matchups, most likely) I always ended up with PRobbo for a buck. And that never worked out well. So good luck to Isaksson as, in ironic fashion, he goes to PSV to replace Gomes who has gone to Spurs to replace Probbo.