Rovers Slump At Stoke

Vital Blackburner Rover23 provides us with a short and sharp match report, after attending the Stoke v Blackburn match

This weekend saw Blackburn Rovers visit a Stoke side in similar form to themselves with only one place separating the two teams in the Barclays Premier League table.

The game set to be one of many long balls and set pieces did not disappoint, and within the first 8 minutes, a stoke corner to the back post found an unmarked Danny Higginbotham, who volleyed the ball past Paul Robinson.

1-0 Stoke.

The first half didn`t get any better, as the home side took full control and were a constant threat throughout. It seemed like Rovers hadn`t turned up. Stoke took advantage of Blackburn`s lack of creativity, work rate, and passing ability and won every 50/50 ball there was. (This was quite often as all we did was boot the ball long and hope it fell to one of our players - which it never did)

Stoke`s lead was doubled just before half time when a Rory Delap long throw fell to Etherington who produced a low cross which was tapped into the net from close range by Sidbe.

Unfortunately an incident off the pitch at half time occurred in the concourse of the South stand where the Rovers supporters were seated, where a 30 year-old fan was struck on the head with a bin and was rushed to Hospital, where he died later on after the game.

The atmosphere took a turn for the worse during the second half, with there was no improvement in the away side`s performance. A red card for Chris Samba was followed by some poor decisions by the Blackburn Management team as Franco Di Santo, Pascal Chimbonda and Steven N`Zonzi were replaced by Keith Andrews, Michele Salgado, and Steven Reid, at a time when a goal was needed desperately.

Towards the end of the game, a chant of "We only want one shot!" broke out in the South Stand which summed up the dire display.

Without doubt one of the worse games I have ever witnessed

Poor display from the England Number 1. Distribution of the ball was terrible, and could have done better with the goals. However he did pull off a couple of good saves Passing was abysmal. Defending was poor. Lacked concentration. Didn`t do anything right really. Played ok up until the controversial sending off. Unlucky for the Big man. Possibly our best player. Looked reasonably assured at the back and didn`t make any mistakes. Again, poor passing, but defended ok. Not a great performance. Want to see better Bad game by his standards and didn`t look like doing much, the story of the game really Poor passing but did well with his tackling, if he had been playing with players who were performing better he could have got away with it. If he is going to play in the middle it needs to be in a 3, not 2, doesn`t work hard enough for me and his set pieces caused no problems. Worked hard and was our only threat through the game, but not good enough to make any difference in a poor side. Spent most of his time defending as we didn`t have much of the ball, should have been up front supporting Niko. Nothing he could have done. Long ball booted to him, or ball to his feat, but always surrounded by 4 stoke defenders, with no support. Great touch and work rate, about the only one. Big Sam - 2



Awful tactics from Sam, didn`t have a clue how to win the game, admitted defeat too early.

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