Last Season: 10-11-17, 41 points and a -20 goal differential.
Transfers:
In: Nikola Kalinic (Hadjduk Split, £ 12 million), Elrio Van Heerden (Club Brugge, Free), Gael Givet (Marsielle, undiscolosed), Lars Christian Jacobsen (Everton, Free), Steven N’Zonzi (SC Amiens, undisclosed), Franco Di Santo (Chelsea, Loan)
Out: Roque Santa Cruz, (Manchester City, £18 million), Dean Winnard (Accrington Stanley, Free), Matt Derbyshire (Olympiakos, £3 million), Andreas Arestidou (Shrewsbury Town, Free), Aaron Mokoena (Portsmouth, Free), Andre Ooijer (PSV Eindhoven, Free), Keith Treacy (Sheffield United, Loan), Mark Bunn (Sheffield United, Loan), Alan Judge (Plymouth Argyle, Loan), Gavin Gunning (Tranmere Rovers, Loan), Alex Marrow (Oldham Athletic, Loan)
Blackburn barely escaped the relegation zone last season, but the important thing to note is that they escaped it. Many a team has narrowly escaped relegation only for that to be seemingly the kick they need to jump themselves back up into a respectable position. The Paul Ince experiment last season didn’t really go as well as hoped as often the first time jobs for ex-players seem to do.
Now the Rovers have Sam Allardyce for the start of his first full season with the team, he’s kicked some dead weight to the curb, brought in a couple of players and now Sam looks do to what he does best, be annoying and win stick around longer than you’d like against your favorite team. They’ll inevitably win some games that you didn’t expect them to win and come December you’ll look at the league table and wonder how they ended up where they are.
Extrapolating out Big Sam’s record from last season over 38 games puts Blackburn at 53 points, which would have been good enough for 7th place. Now certainly Blackburn probably isn’t going to be able to go at that pace all season, but for Rovers fans, that has to be at least somewhat encouraging.
Looking through the Blackburn lineup, there aren’t many guys that really jump out at you, but it’s still a decent enough lineup, Beni McCarthy has been known to score a good number of goals, and Morten Gampst Pedersen seems to be a serviceable enough attacking option from the midfield. Their defense was their one strong suit last season and they should be able to continue to hold up the back line for a shaky Paul Robinson.
They have picked up two great young attacking stars in Nikola Kalinic and Franco DiSanto, who should be able to provide the team some much needed firepower. If these two can produce on a regular basis, I’d expect them to raise Blackburn even higher than expectations, but they are both young, so I’m not expecting worldbeaters just yet.
One thing Rovers have going for them is the fact that they have some of the cheapest season tickets in the League with the cheapest ticket starting at £199 for the full season, meanwhile Wolves, who only just got promoted are charging an outrageous £595 for their cheapest ticket. Having a full stand can often help morale, as nobody wants to give it their all for just a couple of people in the stand.
Blackburn have a start to their schedule that could see them do well to gain some momentum (Manchester City, Fulham, Sunderland, West Ham and Wolves), if they can handle these matches then perhaps we could see them in the upper half of the table to start the season.
Personally I think we will see Blackburn do better than last season, but injuries will likely be their downfall, but if they stay healthy I think they’ll finish near the bottom of the top 10 which would be a success considering last seasons failures.
Pretty spot-on preview, Adam. I’ve written this elsewhere, but I think BFS realized last year that he had the holding mids and back line (minus Ooijer leaving) to ensure safety this coming year was more of a given. He’s focused primarily on high-upside young mids and strikers to challenge this rather veteran, experienced (complacent?) team, other than getting Jacobsen to replace Ooijer. It looks like there is solid coverage at most positions, barring a cascade of injuries. We’re also supposedly in on Real’s ex Salgado, who would also add depth, if not displace Jacobsen.
I think we’re back to where Sparky had us – somewhere in the 8-12 range, with a shot at the Europa if everything comes together…
Well I’m glad it met your approval, I basically went into this one knowing little about the club. I think, especially with Sam there they certainly do have a chance to surprise since spots 7-16 are pretty wide open this season.
I haven’t confirmed this, but we’re also the cheapest season “seat” ticket in the entire “football league” (top 4 FA leagues), as far as I know. Accrington Stanley apparently has SRO tix for cheaper…not that that makes us any better of a team…
Well they definitely have the cheapest seat in the EPL, at least according to the guardian, they have one thats 150, but it’s only 15 games, and I’m sure we all know the 4 games that aren’t included in that one. 200 is an awesome deal, it’ll put butts in the seats which should lead to more entertaining games/some more revenue.