So it looks like Blackburn Rovers? season has finally been kicked into gear, after a poor first few games we are now unbeaten in 6 games (including the two legs of the UEFA cup first round vs. Salzburg).

The new strikers seem to be gelling well, particularly Benni McCarthy, who has the makings of an excellent Premiership striker so far! If Franny Jeffers can continue to perform as he did against Wigan, I will be eating my words (from 11/07/06) sooner than I thought. He didn?t get a goal but he played out of his skin getting a great assist for Bentley?s goal in the process, and being unlucky not to get a goal himself but for a wrongly judged offside decision by the unsurprisingly poor linesman. Shabba has made a good start to his loan spell at Rovers bagging a goal at Middlesbrough, the only fear I have in this case is his injury record! Although we haven?t seen much of Jason Roberts yet in a Rovers shirt we know he can cut it in the Premiership. After being the top scorer at Wigan last season, he reaffirmed this status with a smart pass to set up Benni?s fifth goal of the season against Wigan (and he won?t have an easier one)!

A special mention must also go to our two ?new? fullbacks?the Aussies! Brett Emerton has been one of the best right backs in the country this season (if not the best) linking up excellently with David Bentley, and captain Lucas has adapted excellently to his new role at left back! The only great concern at the minute is how long it will take Ooijer to adapt to the pace of the Premiership. He has showed some signs of what he is capable of, and those signs impressed me, but at times he seems like a bit of a liability.

I also can?t resist mentioning our penalty record this season, as I?m sure anyone reading who doesn?t support Rovers will not be aware of it (cheers Lineker et al). This season we have had SIX penalties awarded against us, of which only ONE has been scored, thanks to Brad Friedel, and Jason Brown?s tremendous treble save on his debut from Todorov?s penalty and rebound and McCullough?s follow up. Take a bow son!

So the UEFA cup draw has been relatively kind to us (compared to the other English team?s draws). Don?t get me wrong its going to be tough as I don?t see any easy games in there, however they are all games which we have a big chance of taking maximum points from, with Wisla away, Basle at home, Feyenoord away and Nancy at home. If we continue to play as we have done recently, this is ours for the taking!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 10th, 2006 at 1:15 pm and is filed under Blackburn Rovers. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.