[STORY] Blackburn, A new era has begun.

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Chapter 20 – Everton, Sunderland, Man City, Premiership Champions revealed

Blackburn had to travel to Goodison park to face Everton. Manchester United also had to face W.B.A at the Hawthorns. If Man U lost, Blackburn only needed a point to clinch the title, all pressure was on Fergie’s lads. Sukur got Rovers off to the perfect start with a 5th minute Volley after an assist from Hignett. That was Hakan’s 56th goal in 58 games. Blackburn outclassed Everton in every possible way, unfrotuantly, David Thompson, one of Blackburn’s best players this season hobbled off with a potential shin injury. Going into half time, 1-0 up, Thomas was confident Fergie would look at the half time score. Manchester United led W.B.A 1-0 at half time, all the pressure now on United. Gillespie on for Thompson, and the second half underway, Richard Wright was making some superb saves, however, Damien Duff’s 50th minute low drive skidded along the wet surface and under the body of the England U21 keeper. The match finished 2-0. In the other match Van Nistelrooy scored an 88th minute goal to keep Manchester United still in the title race after beating W.B.A away to 2-0.

With one point needed from Rovers three remaining games to be crowned as champions of England, Rovers had to entertain Sunderland at Ewood. Thompson, who is out for only 3 days with a bruised shin is left out of this match, and Gillespie stands in. First half and nothing special, boring football, all one sided, Blackburn 8 shots, however, they fail to hit the back of the net. 0-0 at half time, Manchester United leading Charlton 1-0, but that does not matter. If Blackburn win, they are champions. Gillespie comes off for Matt Jansen, and the second half gets underway. Lucas Neil is tripped up in the box going past Schwarz and a penalty is awarded, Lucas Neil confidently steps up and put it into the top corner of the net, could this be the goal that crowns Blackburn champions? Meanwhile, Manchester United are still leading 1-0. With 10 minutes to go, Dunn’s swerving shot is tipped onto the bar and out for a corner by Sorensen. Blackburn keep the ball, knock it about, and finally, controversial referee Mike Riley, puts the whistle between his lips, blows for full time, and Blackburn are awarded the Premiership trophy, 2 games before the end of the season!

In a post match interview, Gareth Thomas seemed rather unemotional and calm. When asked why he replied ”This season, I promised the fans silverware, I should not get excited at this, the premiership should be a routine trophy every season here, the lads are great, the fans are great, and all this without spending, I will be looking forward to the champions league next season, and I expect I will be using the funds from competitions this year to spend on new young players, slowly being brought up through the ranks, also the UEFA cup final is now on my mind”

Blackburn, crowned premiership champions 4 days ago travel to Man City. Wanting to keep team spirits high for the UEFA cup final v Inter Milan in a weeks time, Gareth field is best 11:

                      Sukur
Duff                                 Thompson
               Flitcroft Dunn
Hignett            Tugay          Neils
                 Curtis    Berg 
                        Friedel

Manchester City kicked off, it only took 5 minutes to Wanchope climb above Berg and head past the outstretched Friedel, Man City dominated, they went into the break a goal up. It only took 2 minutes after the restart, half time substitute catching Scmeichel off his line and lobbing him from 20 yards. From there onwards, Blackburn took the initiative and attacked, Thomas set Sukur the target man in the box, and with 15 minutes to go, Tugay’s free kick was nodded in by Sukur who climbed above Schmeichel. This was the final result, Blackburn were now 9 points clear and had ran away with the title. Still, one game left to play in the premiership.

 

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Chapter 21 – Inter Milan, Aston Villa, UEFA cup final, Premiership

In a pre-match interview:
Interviewer: Having lost one final on penalties already this season, will your attitude change as you enter this final?

Gareth: No, every match we play is an important match, we have found ourselves on a winning streak of 5 matches, and an unbeaten streak of 6 matches going into this final, while going into the League cup final, we had only won 2 on the trot.

Interviewer: Do you believe you can win this match, after all, this is the most important match to a Blackburn Rovers fan.

Gareth: Belief is everything. If you think you can’t win, you won’t. That’s a losers attitude, if you think you can win, you won’t stop and will try every trick in the book until you have got what you want. That’s how a determined winner succeeds.

Interviewer: On paper, Inter outclass you from players, to staff, to financial status, is this a problem in you, or your players eyes?

Gareth: Not at all, Man U, the richest club in the world, all they have won this season is the FA cup. You can have Wenger, Ferguson, Capello, and Clough as your staff, if they don’t bond like our staff has done you will be going round in circles.

The weather is dry, the pitch at Parken in Copenhagen is in excellent condition, and the temperature is 20 C. 41, 641 people are in the stadium, with under-soil heating and a retractable roof. The roof is open, the 20,000 travelling Blackburn faithful supporters are cheering. Inter Milan are without Batistuta who is ineligible for European matches, and Crespo is out for 10 days with damaged cruciate ligaments, and Vieri was sold to Barcelona for 32.5m which is a major boost for the Blackburn defence.
Tugay and Javier Zanetti lead out their troops to do battle. Swedish referee Eyjolfur Olafsson blows, and Inter kick off. For the first quarter off an hour, there was no action at all, just scrappy balls in midfield, Flitcroft took the ball down the right wing, gave it to Thompson at the byline who crossed it in, Dunn got ahead of Materazzi knocked it back for Sukur who buried the ball in the top corner. 1-0 to Blackburn on the 16th! More boggy play, and on the 39th minute, Blackburn found themselves with a corner. Hignett took it, the ball came back to him, he hit a low ball into the near post, Dunn stabbed at it, and put Blackburn, English Champions 2-0 up! At half time, it was 2-0, Blackburn had 6 shots, 5 of which were on target, Inter, surprisingly had none! Going into the second half, this put a huge amount of pressure on the Blackburn defence. Both sides come out to attack, Ventola and Dalmat were taken off for Recoba and Emre. Conceicao then replaced Serena. Into the 75th minute and things are still the same, both sides attacking, Blackburn 2-0 up. Duff get’s away down the left wing, and cuts inside, again, he twists and turns, cutting inside Cannavaro shoots hard and low and hit’s a superb goal as Blackburn go 3-0 up with 12 minute to spare, Gareth tells his men to be cautious at the back as Inter will now try anything to win, Gareth saves 2 subs for the 90th minute, and on the 78th he uses his first one, Gillespie on for Hignett, Gillespie goes right wingback, and Neil goes to left wingback. Inter have had only 1 shot on goal, and have been poor all match, on the 85th minute, the 4th official indicates 2 minutes injury time. Nils-Eric Johansson replaces John Curtis in the 88th minute, and so does Jansen replacing Flitcroft. Dunn had a golden opportunity to make it 4-0, but Recoba got in the way in the nick of time. The referee placed the whistle in his mouth, and blew to confirm Blackburn are champions of Europe. Gareth Thomas was clearly delighted and the 17 year old Belfast lad lived up to his words in bringing silverware in without spending millions.

In a post match interview Gareth Thomas was clearly chuffed with the domination of the game and the final result. Gareth said that Blackburn were clearly the better team on the day, and deserved nothing less than a 3-0 win. Hector Raul Cuper praised Thomas’ work for the club, however, he denied big rumours that Cannavaro would be moving to Blackburn in the summer.

With 4 days to go until the final day of the season and Blackburn visit Villa park. Sukur, 2 goals short of 60 goals in 61 appearances twists his ankle 24 hours after the UEFA cup final and will be out for a month. Thompson and Nils-Eric- Johansson both sign new deal keeping them at the club until 2008.

With Sukur out, youngster Dean Shiels stepped in. With a first team surrounding him, just come out of European success, this was sure to be great experience in building the youngster up. Aston Villa kick off as both teams look to go out the season on a high, Hignett hit a free kick on the 4th minute, the ball hit the wall, the rebound fell to John Curtis who blasted it home, his first ever goal for Blackburn! 9 minutes later right wingback hits a ball into the path of Dunn who tried a volley and scored to put Blackburn 2-0 up. Shiels makes way for Andy Cole. He takes just 5 minutes to score. The match ends 3-0 and that is the end of the season, a very successful season. A new era has begun.

 

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Post-season review:

So, Thomas promised silverware, 2 cup finals, 1 loss, 1 win, and crowned Premiership champions. What can people can take from this? Getting your tactics right on the day, if you look back, I had a horrible spell, 5 or 6 games without a win. This was all down to the rain, players like Pires, Zidane, Giggs, they can’t peform to their full potential on a boggy pitch. Also, I left hard tackling on most of those matches, I finally decided to change the playmakers from Duff and Thompson, to the centre midfielder and defensive midfielder, Flitcroft and Tugay. Also, from hard tackling to normal tackling, I was conceding fewer free kicks around the penalty area, which I conceded less. Always play to the weather, players with a low work rate, will perform **** in the cold, players with low stamina will play **** in the heat as they will wear themselves out dead easy. Playing to the weather is probably your best chance of getting a result.

You also have to take into consideration the other teams style of play, if the other team are playing defensive/counter, and you are attacking, you will be caught out. If the opposition are playing direct, turn off your offside trap, sensible stuff like that.

If you are playing direct, it is probably best to play something like the arrowhead, or with at least 2 AMC with a striker that can get jump and head down for the AMC’s.

Decisions is a big part of mixed passing, Sol Campbell, hype in my opinion, not a very good defender, especially when with the ball, he will look up, and hoof the ball to Henry, normally resulting in going out for a throw in, or he would try and thread a through ball from defence to attack, and it will be cut out by the oppositions midfielder for Campbell being obvious, and finally, the mixed passing, Campbell, when under pressure, gives the ball to another defender putting them under pressure.

Somehow, at the end of the year, I had lost money, 5m from winning the premiership, 1.5m from winning the UEFA cup, and 500k for a league cup final. 8m income from gate receipts, 4m from merchandising, and 1.2m from T.V revenue, all cancelled out by an 18m wage bill, 1.3m maintenance, and 4.2m signing on fees from new contracts to Duff, Dunn, Thompson and Johansson. All in all a 1.3m loss. But with 24m in bank, I decide to increase capacity of Ewood park to increase income from more gate receipts. Also invest in youth training, would you rather have Shearer’s regen, or Heskeys regen?

That’s it for one season, maybe another story next season, or maybe just an update on how I did, things in general. Thanks for reading.
Gareth.