Among our season preview interviews, few were as pessimistic about their team’s chances as Blackburn’s Ian Herbert – Rovers then immediately went out and signed a load of players and have made their best start in ten years.
Best start since 2013, what were you worried about? How's it been?
For some ridiculous reason, I ended up studying ancient history in the sixth form. I hated it with a passion and very quickly worked on securing a university place that would count my general studies paper as part of the points tally rendering this subject obsolete. I sat the exam, thought I’d flunked it but as it turned out I’d scraped the Grade C necessary to pursue my dreams…what was I worried about?
Well, quite a lot, I hadn’t studied anything like hard enough, I was very lucky that the questions fell nicely and I can only assume that plenty of others taking it must have been utterly hopeless.
Turning to Rovers…what was I worried about? Well, quite a lot. We hadn’t recruited anything like hard enough, we were lucky the fixtures fell nicely and can only assume our opponents were utterly hopeless…
More seriously, when we last spoke we hadn’t signed anyone, the departure of Sammie Szmodics was imminent and the prevailing mood amongst the fanbase was at best trepidatious. Season tickets weren’t exactly flying off the shelves. The mood music was funereal. The grey clouds were forming over Ewood. Nice kits though.
As the season hoved into view, it transpired the club eventually recognised that starting the season with a squad packed with u.11’s & over 35’s wasn’t entirely feasible (albeit extremely seductive from a P&S perspective) and they embarked upon the sort of frenzied trolley dash last seen in early afternoon game shows hosted by Dale Winton.
We therefore assembled a decent squad, had some attractive (some say easy) home fixtures to start with and three home wins on the trot has provided a solid foundation and alleviated much of the pre-season stress.
Rovers in the league so far…
Blackburn 4-2 Derby Dolan 19, Weimann 72, Szmodics 76, Ohashi 84 – Nelson 67, Wilson 88
Norwich 2-2 Blackburn Sargent 65, Sainz 73 – Hodges 20, Ohashi 87
Blackburn 2-1 Oxford Rankin-Costello 45, Sigurdsson 83 – Harris 44
Burnley 1-1 Blackburn Foster 10 – Weimann 23
Blackburn 3-0 Bristol City Travis 17, Ohashi 55, 70
Preston 0-0 Blackburn
What has Eustace changed and improved from last season? How's he doing?
The glib answer would be to say he’s had a full pre-season, brought in his own players and stamped his authority on the side. However, a number of now regular first-teamers came into Rovers very late in the day and so didn’t have the luxury of that full pre-season and rumours abound that Eustace’s preferred choices were not the ones eventually signed. This apparently spared us the sight of John Ruddy gracing the first team so perhaps that’s no bad thing.
He is definitely popular amongst the players and seems to be in tune with their capabilities. JDT’s approach seemed to be too full on for many of our squad and this return to a more avuncular and supportive style is working right now.
Of course, the challenge will be what Eustace does when it stops working and he has to be more demanding and critical of those players currently basking in the lack of a rasping Danish voice calling them out on the training ground.
Tactically, we are presently much more resilient, though much of that might simply be attitudinal - is it that they want to play for Eustace, they put more effort in?
We still knock it around at the back and cause palpitations and our creativity is lacking. We are outperforming our xG thanks largely to Yuki and a regression to the mean will almost certainly catch up with us soon…anyone who watched last week’s encounter at Preston will testify to that.
Much remains to be done, but he’s made an impressive start.
Obviously when we last spoke you'd signed nobody and there was a week until the season started, you've subsequently done brisk business - how do you rate the transfer window in the end?
The likes of Gueye and Ohashi are exactly the kind of signings that intrigue. You’ve never heard of them, they come in full of infectious energy and then add something new and vibrant to the squad. The experience of McFadzean, Batth and Weimann are shrewd, if short-term solutions and the loan market has been used to supply cover by bringing in the likes of Beck, Baker and Cozier-Duberry.
The one signing who definitively nailed his colours to Eustace’s mast is Todd Cantwell, who spoke in glowing terms about the manager, his vision, desire and his recipe for risotto. One of those I may have misremembered… Cantwell hasn’t really featured fully yet as he missed pre-season at Rangers but if he can plug the Szmodics-sized hole in attacking midfield then we might just be okay after all.
Ins >>> Makhtar Gueye, 26, CF, RWDM (Belgium), £1.5m >>> Yuki Ohashi, 28, CF, Hiroshima (Japan), £1m >>> Balázs Tóth, 26, GK, Fehervar, £1m >>> Todd Cantwell, 26, AM, Rangers, £500k >>> Aodhan Doherty, 18, LW, Linfield, £100k >>> Andreas Weimann, 32, AM, Bristol City, Free >>> Danny Batth, 33, CB, Norwich, Free >>> Jack Barrett, 22, GK, Everton, Free >>> Amario Cozier-Duberry, 19, RW, Brighton, Loan >>> Lewis Baker, 29, AM, Stoke, Loan >>> Owen Beck, 22, LB, Liverpool, Loan
Outs >>> Sammie Szmodics, 28, AM, Ipswich, £10m >>> Sam Gallagher, 28, CF, Stoke, £1.5m >>> Leo Wahlstedt, 24, GK, Aarhus (Denmark), £1m >>> Semir Telalovic, 24, CF, SSV Ulm, Undisclosed >>> Jake Garrett, 21, DM, Bristol Rovers, Loan >>> Connor O’Riordan, 20, CB, Cambridge, Loan >>> Jack Vale, 23, CF, Motherwell, Loan >>> Dilan Markanday, 22, RW, Chesterfield, Loan
Stand out players and weak links so far?
The major problems have been addressed. There is cover across the whole team now which gives the manager options. The key issue is finding the right mix of enterprise and endeavour (arte et labore you might say) and delivering some consistently high performance levels.
The Japanese import Yuki Ohashi has become a firm fan favourite early on with some very impressive forward play and a handful of quite delightful goals. As indeed as his strike partner Makhtar Gueye, who is exactly the big, awkward, imposing centre forward that every other team seemed to unsettle us with last season. He won’t score many goals you suspect, but he will provide a lot of entertainment…if not always for the right reasons.
Our main concern presently is creating and converting more quality chances. As we discovered in the Brereton-Diaz wonder season, pinging them in spectacularly from all over the shop is hugely entertaining, but it rarely sustains a full 46 game season. Some bread and butter scrambling a few in from a yard out or set piece headers to pad it out makes it feel more sustainable.
I’d take half a dozen own goals to be frank…
Revised expectations for the season?
The feared battle against relegation looks incredibly pessimistic now, but there lingers a sense that we are in something of a false position in the embryonic table. The inability to break down Preston’s 10-man defence, the ease with which Norwich and Burnley picked us off to score and a shambolic Carabao Cup, defeat at home to Blackpool tempered the mood.
Against that though, the fortitude to go to Norwich and Burnley and come back from each with a point after going behind plus the goalfests at home to Derby and Bristol City suggest that we should now be looking upwards this season.
It feels more like a mid-table finish to me, hopefully top half, but on our day, if we click, we might just have the capability to take down some prestigious opponents along the way.
Links >>> Rovers official website >>> Official website >>> Lancashire Telegraph — Local Paper >>> BRFCS message board and podcast >>> Rovers Chat — Blog
The Twitter @ianherbert, @loftforwords
Pictures — Action Images