Well that was dreadful.
This season continues to deliver new depths to plumb as a raw, injury-ravaged team is repeatedly sent out to do battle with opponents that appear to be streets ahead of Rovers in terms of organisation, tactics, physique and crucially, morale.
As the evening progressed the hardy band of Rovers fans behind the goal were serenaded regularly by the home fans with various “witty” chants including the evergreen “You’re f*cking sh*t” and “Do, do do, dooo…f*cking useless”.
The response of the Rovers fans? Well, it was to sarcastically reply with “How sh*t must you be, we’ve scored a goal”. That goal provided the one bright spark of an otherwise dismal evening.
Throughout the team, supporters looked for something to give them an adrenaline shot of excitement, but endless, lethargic, unimaginative horseshoe passing around the back five sucked the life out of the fans.
Pre-game, an air of resignation prevailed. Post-game, the songs turned to “You’re getting sacked in the morning” – ostensibly aimed at Valerien Ismael one suspects, though in all honesty that could feasibly have been aimed at many members of Rovers management team, the coaching staff and a number of the players.
The systematic dismantling of a squad that finished seventh last season has seen the not totally unexpected sight of Rovers being sucked into a relegation battle with the speed and effectiveness of an aeroplane toilet. The vacuum does its thing…down the table we plunge.
The transfer window remains open but realistically, what quality can be brought in to a club where the only metric that seems to matter is “will it be cheaper than what we already have?”. Defeats to almost all the teams around us in the relegation battle have marked our cards. The warning signs are there, they are being ignored, this can only end badly.
What can we as fans do about it? We can sing witty, sarcastic songs. We can urge the team on. We can, dare I say it, boycott to show our displeasure. None of those options improves the quality of the team on the pitch, scores a goal or wins us points.
The harsh reality confronting Blackburn Rovers FC is that the path followed since the end of last season is inexorably leading to League One, but this time, there is no Tony Mowbray, Bradley Dack, Danny Graham, Charlie Mulgrew, Craig Conway nor even Elliott Bennett to provide hope that a swift return is on the cards.
The club’s “will this do?” culture is chipping away at hope and you have to have a heart of stone not to feel sorry for the young lads of the academy being thrown in at the deep end by a manager singularly blessed with an aloof arrogance not backed up by ability.
Will I boycott the Watford game? Well I’m not going. But I’ve not gone to lots of games this season. Since the insulting appointment of Owen Coyle, my club has moved away from me and I have subsequently found other ways to spend my time and money.
Rovers will always be my team of course. Show me a regime that obviously shares my pain and my joy and I would be enticed back; after 50+ years of fandom, that sadly, is what Venky’s reign has done to me.
