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 Saturday 1st October 2005, Barclays Premiership, Ewood Park, Kick-Off 3:00pm
Blackburn Rovers: Friedel, Neill, Khizanishvili, Nelsen, Gray, Bentley (Emerton 61), Reid, Tugay (Mokoena 61), Pedersen, Bellamy (Kuqi 14), Dickov. Subs not used: Enckelman (gk), Todd
Albion: Kirkland, Albrechtsen, C Davies, Clement, Robinson, Greening, Chaplow, Wallwork, Kamara (Horsfield 78), Gera, Campbell (Ellington 67). Subs not used: Kuszczak (gk), Moore, Watson
Referee: Uriah Rennie (South Yorkshire)
Assistant Referees: Gary Brittain (South
Yorkshire), Paul Canadine (South Yorkshire) Half-Time: Blackburn Rovers 0-0 Albion Attendance: 20,721 Conditions: Cloudy, rain at times
MATCH REPORT
BY: Dale Brookes WEST BROM TEAM NEWS: Manager Bryan Robson made three changes to the side that was beaten 2-1 at home to Charlton last weekend. Richard Chaplow, Martin Albrechtsen and Diomansy Kamara came in for Andy Johnson, Steve Watson and Rob Earnshaw as the Baggies switched formation from 4-4-2 to 4-5-1 with Kevin Campbell on his own up front. BLACKBURN ROVERS TEAM NEWS: Rovers Boss Mark Hughes made just one change to the starting eleven that won 2-1 at Old Trafford last weekend. Robbie Savage was suspended after picking up his fifth yellow card and so was replaced by ex-Millwall midfielder Steven Reid. BUOYANT BLACKBURN BREAK BAGGIES HEARTS WITH DOUBLE FROM KUQI!!! Super
sub Shefqi Kuqi wrapped up the points for Rovers as he struck a late brace
to send the Baggies to their fifth Premiership defeat in seven games. Kuqi
rose above Neil Clement to head in the first following a clever corner
kick before he capitalised on a poor Curtis Davies back pass to seal a 2-0
win for Mark Hughes’ men.
Diomansy Kamara continued where he had left off against Charlton with a
mazy run down the left hand side, after beating O’Neill the former Pompey
man set up Chaplow but his shot deflected off defender Khizanishvili before
falling into the path of Jonathan Greening who’s effort was somehow
superbly saved from point blank range by keeper Friedel. Albion were
beginning to look the better side and Zoltan Gera was not far
away as he
curled a 20 yard free kick just wide of the goal The
second half began with Mark Hughes’ side on the attack as they searched
for an early breakthrough and it almost arrived when Kuqi swept in a
telling cross for Dickov but just as he looked set to latch onto it the
recalled Martin Albrechtsen came to Albion’s rescue and cleared away the
danger. Steven Reid tried his luck from 25 yards with a set piece but
keeper Kirkland made a great save to tip the ball away to safety. In
the 80th minute Rovers’ pressure finally paid off as substitute Shefqi
Kuqi rose above Clement to head past the stranded
Kirkland and into the bottom corner of the net following an excellent
corner from Pedersen. It was soon 2-0 when Curtis Davies made a monumental
error as his back pass fell short of keeper Kirkland enabling Kuqi to slot
the ball home and give Rovers maximum points for only the second time this
season at Ewood Park. MAN OF THE MATCH: Martin Albrechtsen
PLAYER RATINGS OUT OF TEN
REF
WATCH
FAN
WATCH MY REVIEW
Well there goes another point out of the window, after watching that load
of garbage in the second half it’s seriously worrying me as to whether Mr
Robson is capable of keeping us in the top flight. For starters he got the
team and the tactics completely wrong again! The 4-5-1 formation will
never win you a game unless you play with a pacey striker but what does
Robson do? He goes and plays 35 year old ‘legs have gone’ Campbell up
front on his own who by the way has NOT scored for 18 games! Surely that
must tell you something? Obviously not our manager who continues to play
his favourites in Wallwork and Campbell who to me are just a waste of time
as they don’t contribute anything, they just look completely out of depth
in this league. Wallwork was once again useless and for me I am fast
losing patience with this guy as he just does not seem to put the effort
in and even looks overweight. As for Campbell his legs have completely
gone and he wins absolutely nothing in the air so why have a
£3 million striker sitting on the bench when your not going to play him Mr
Robson?? That is a question I would like an answer to for sure.
rovers.co.uk baggies.com wbaunofficial.com blueandwhites.com premierleague.com sportinglife.com
Bryan Robson: "In the first half, it was a really good performance. We looked comfortable at the back and were passing the ball pretty well and hitting them on the counter attack. At half-time I told the lads to keep playing the way they were and to expect Blackburn to come fiercely at them in the second half. I told them if we could keep the ball and take the sting out of the game, we'd do well. We started off all right and passed it reasonably well. But Blackburn then stepped up a gear. We couldn't cope with them and kept giving the ball away. For the last half-hour, I don't think we strung more than two passes together. And if you do that in the Premiership and give the ball back to the opposition for them to win set plays, you're bound to get punished somewhere along the line." "For an hour, I was really pleased with my side's performance because Blackburn are a difficult side to play at Ewood. But we didn't take enough responsibility and show enough desire to go on and continue it for 90 minutes. That's why we got beaten." "We didn't have enough players taking responsibility in front of our back four to keep the ball. And therefore our back four came under a lot of pressure in the latter part of the game." "It was disappointing because in the last few matches we've been chasing and have played some good football in the second half of games. I thought our lads would run on strongly again but they went the other way. Maybe that's because of a mental approach of settling for a point and going on the back foot. We've got to ask questions of ourselves again as to why we started so well but finished so badly." "Curtis was distraught. You can make mistakes like that but what annoys me more than anything is that we were in the last third of the pitch attacking and from our throw-in we make two passes and the ball has ended up with our back man. I don't understand how you can do that in the last three minutes of a game when you're 1-0 down. We should have been attacking from that situation. It shows the players are making the wrong decisions on the pitch. We made wrong decisions in the second half and that's why we put pressure on ourselves." "I thought Albrechtsen was outstanding. He couldn't have done any better in the game. But my concern is that we're averaging two goals-a-game against us and you're not going to score three goals in every game in the Premiership. Until we get that base right and stop conceding goals, we're not going to win games." "We'd like to get straight back into it and start preparing for the next game. But we'll just have to assess where we're going wrong and work on it. All we can do is go out on the training pitch and work hard at things we think are costing us." Source: wba.co.uk
Mark Hughes: "In the first half we were a little bit apprehensive for whatever reason, we didn't really push the game forward like we know we can. We were a little disappointed with the first half as we knew we hadn't got to the level we reached at Old Trafford. In the second half we were much better and had real drive in our play, and we got our rewards in the end. There's always a worry when the opposition get a lot of players behind the ball, you wonder if you are going to get the break. Two great goals by Shefki, that will do him a lot of good, so it was a good day all round for us. In the second half I thought we were by far the stronger side.” "We are in the top half now, we've a lot of players going away on international duty so it's a good send off for them." Source: rovers.co.uk
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