Apparently Blackburn win their matches ugly, think again please: Blackburn 4-2 Reading

Along with Bolton Wanderers; modern day Blackburn Rovers are seen as “bully boys”, who in order to survive in the lucrative, Sky Sports invested Premier Division of English football, resort to rough tactics (but not particularly dirty) in order to achieve good results and to survive and progress in the Premiership. Therefore whenever they have a fixture against Arsenal; a team that enjoys playing silky football, they are criticised for their rough tackling and physical style of play. On one occasion when the two teams delivered a 0-0 draw at the Emirates stadium last year in an FA Cup tie, Cesc Fabregas approached Blackburn manager Mark Hughes and asked whether he had played for Barcelona. When the former Manchester United striker replied yes, Fabregas said Blackburn’s display “wasn’t Barcelona football” . This comment implying that FC Barcelona are renowned for playing attractive football, yet Blackburn are not.

But so what? What if they don’t play like the Arsenal’s or Manchester United? Its a dog eat dog world and they have to survive in the top tier of the English league by any means necessary, even if they have someone like Robbie Savage in the team. However i would like to argue the case that Blackburn Rovers under Mark Hughes, do not play “ugly”, unattractive football or bully and harass their opponents or whatever media or football hyperbole that the media seems to tag on such teams. No Blackburn are well capable in playing football and good one at that, as emphasised with their win against new whipping boys Reading. Unfortunatetly this has not boosted their gate receipts for, everytime i watch a match at Ewood park, the stadium is most of the time half empty.

Blackburn Rovers and in this season in particular, have demonstrated their derivation as bastions of the premiership by achieving good results through playing stylish attacking football. There has been a number of results where they have torn teams apart, and their opponents have found difficulty in getting to grips with their slick passing, dynamic of the ball play, and pace. A series of convincing wins highlight this point: a 2-1 win over Middlesbrough at the Riverside, a 1-0 win against Manchester City at home, a 3-0 home win over Birmingham in the Carling Cup, and a 2-1 win at the stadium of light against Sunderland. They do however, still maintain a tremendous work ethic and physical presence. The central defender Christopher Samba is a player that supplements this statement, as he is commanding in the air in defensive as well as attacking situations.

They have also  managed to score 18 goals on the way to occupying a sixth place spot. This fluid and attacking sort of play of which i profess that they possess has much to do with the players Mark “Sparky” Huges has at his dispossal. A big part of Blackburn’s success so far, is the performance of their two forwards: Roque Santa Cruz and Benni McCarthy. Up front this partnership may rival Manchester United’s Rooney and Tevez and Arsenal’s Robin Van Persie and Emmanuel Adeybayor, and they have managed to score 11 goals between them.

In the case of Roque Santa Cruz, he gives Blackburn a domineering precense up front. Balls can be knocked long, and he is able to get on the end of balls knocked into the box. As well as this, he has proven that he is no slouch in the pace department and his link up play with his midfielders as well as his strike partner burgeons on the telepathic. If what you are getting from my description of the Paraguyian players ability is that he is a physical lout, please do not be mistaken as this is not the case as he is extremly able with his feet. Brought from Bayern Munich this July for £3.5 million, Blackburn haveobtain a striker with considerable experience even who has won 6 Bundsliga titles in Germany and a Champions league trophy. The nominal rule of foreign players taking a while to adapt to the speed and physicality of the English premiership, does not apply with Santa Cruz, having scored goals against Middlesbrough, Everton, Sunderland and Reading.

His strike partner draws comparisons in terms adaptability and a Champions League medal. McCarthy may not be as physical as Santa Cruz, but he is maybe a notch more skillfull on the ground and speedier. Having scored 18 goals in the premiership last season he has also adapted just as quickly for the Lancashire team. Defences have a hard time dealing with McCarthy with his quickness of feet combining well with his quickness of thought. 

The midfield is also capable of great attacking play and producing goals. Whereas up front we have the football equivalent of Butch and Sundance, it must be noted that in terms of the domino effect, Blackburn’s midfield deserves praise also. Though David Bentley has taken the decision not to be drafted for his country, the former Arsenal trainee, supports his front line domestically through providing great crosses, through balls and also coming up with goals. Bret Emerton proves Australians can play football, playing like an old school winger in the style of Stanley Matthews. Morten Gamst Penderson has hit top form with Blackburn, often producing some spectacular goals. David Dunne; the prodigal son, who was part of the squad that got promoted to the premiership back in 2002, and helped them survive a season before acrimonously falling out with then manager Graham Sousness. His return to his hometown club may signal a return to form that had seen him represent England, and a goal against Arsenal this season may support this view.

Then we have Tugay Kerimoglu and Robbie Savage. Although it can be argud that Savage’s sole purpose is to wind te opposition up (of which he duly does), beneath his hard tackling, water carrying role, is a player that has a deceptive technical ability. The constitution of Savage is to never waste a pass, and having operated as a winger he is adept at delivering good crosses when pushed out wide. Finally there is the Turkish number 5 Tugay Kerimoglu. Savage commented in a post aftermatch interview that Tugay looked like Worzel Gummidge; and to be fair he is not that far off. To me he looks like your modern day whino. I can easily picture an elderly man drinking a six pack of Fosters on the park bench, that he had brought from his winnings on the races, rather than an elderly man playing top flight professional football. The diminishment of his youthful looks, and the matureness of his footballing age of 37, does not correlate with his ability to play ball as if he were a 23 year old. The peach of a goal that he scored against Reading as well as his all round performance, can only be described as vintage.

Roque Santa Cruz laid on a first goal for Benni McCarthy and then slipped the ball under Marcus Hahnemann to make it two before Tugay made the game safe with a long-range shot just after the half-hour. Reading’s substitute Kevin Doyle pulled a couple back, with a McCarthy penalty in between, but this afternoon offered yet more evidence to suggest that Blackburn could make a decent fist of challenging for the top four.

Steve Coppell’s Reading team on the other hand are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain the top performances they produced last season for this one, for what some people are calling secon season syndrome. On his recent problems Coppell said:

 ”I don’t know what the second season syndrome is. It’s a label, it means absolutely nothing. The first season is hard but for a lot of teams who get into the Premier League there is a huge gulf between that and the second season.”

Maybe it is time for Coppell’s team to take a leaf out of Sousness’s Blackburn team, or Allardyce’s Bolton team when both teams were embarking on this supposed difficult second season. They apparently played ugly; hounded the opposition physically to achieve good results.

Due to legal complications Tugay’s goal against Reading cannot be featured on You Tube. However a similar strike against Tottenham, scored about 7 months ago is shown below.

Tugay v Tottenham

Filed under: Reading, blackburn rovers, football, premiership , football, sports

11 goal thriller: Portsmouth 7-4 Reading

If Americans are ever going to be wowed over by the beautiful game, then watching this match might persuade them to make the switch to make soccer their number one sport. The Americans don’t seem to like the 1 -nil score lines. Nor are they particulary fond of the 2-nils, a 2-1 score line will still have them sleeping, a 3-2 scoreline might cause them to show a mild interest. Well you get the picture, American’s seem to like high scoring games or so i am told, as i don’t know many Americans.

I had an imaginary American friend called Bobby when i was a kid and i was trying to get him interested in football but he was having none of it. “But look!” i told him, “i know the score is only 2-1 but its entertaining. How can you not marvel at how skillful that player is,  or how dedicated this player is, look at that double drag back! The game could go either way” then came back the reply “Not interested, i’d rather watch Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls”. Suffice to say this was where our relationship ended, although i did try to get in contact with him on facebook but how many “Bobby’s” are ther in the US?

No one could ever of predicted a 7-4 score, not least the thousands of football bet-sters residing in Britain. But the way this season of the premiership is going is it really that surprising? A 6-0 drubbing of Derby at the hands of Liverpool. 5-0 to the Gunners was the scoreline when Derby met  league leaders Arsenal.  Fulham versus Manchester City ended 3-3. The Fulham versus Tottenham score also ending 3-3. And of course Monday nights game 4-4 Tottenham versus Aston Villa. Ok, so most of these results had involved one or three teams, most notably Tottenham, and Fulham probably highlighting that these teams are big on attack but not so clever in defence, and Derby’s inclusion in my ramblings has much to do with how easy it is to score against the premiership newcomers. Now we have the inclusion of Portsmouth and Reading intro this fray as an advertisement for multi million pound English football that has encouraged a shoppipng spree from many foreign billionaires including America (this would be welcomed by John Madjeski).

The first half offered few hints of what the outcome of the game would be. After 7 minutes of the game gone  Reading lost the ball in midfield which allowed brilliant work by John Utaka on the left, who seemed to waltz through the Reading defence before making sure he had time to deliver a pin point cross to Benjani Mwaruwari; who flug himself at the ball to volley the delivery home.

Portsmouth 1-0 Reading ( Benjani 7 minutes)

If Coppell is going to rectify the problems with his squad this season it is going to have to start with the defence for for the majority of the match they acted as if they were pub players and not premiership professionals. This is justified when not soon after the first goal, Reading goalkeeper Marcus Hahneman had a rush of blood to the head to try to catch Kranjkars corner. Having made an embarrasment of himself by spilling the ball to Papa Bouba Diop, he was relieved when Diop put the ball wide. Before the break Benjani,  playing as the lone striker, put his side 2-nil up when unmarked he shot a low shot hard into the bottom corner.

Portsmouth 2-0 Reading (Benjani 37 minutes)

Portsmouth could of had more than the seven they put past Reading such was the hoplessness of Readings’ defence. Chances for Benjani, Sean Davis and Utaka made sure Reading were always on their toes. But it was Reading who halved the deficit before the break. A freekick was awarded to Reading which Liam Rosenior struck the umderside of the crossbar and Dave Kitson who prodded the ball goalwards. Portsmouth’s defence had not been paying attention to Readings Flame haired striker when this should of been their main priority; David James reacted to his shot but Steve Hunt was first to the parry and headed the loose ball in.

Portsmouth 2-1 Reading (Steve Hunt 45 minutes)

The Portsmouth back line had previuosly kept 3 consecutive clean sheets, whereas Reading were just as stunned that they had managed to half Portsmouths lead. After the break. After the break Reading had levelled after David James jumped on the bandwagon of Top choice England keepers performing football blunders. Having rushed out of his goal to intercept the ball Dave Kitson spotted his opportunity to level and drove in a long shot into the Portsmouth’s empty net. The match suddenly started to spring to life even though 4 goals had already been scored. Utaka had a cross scrambled away from the line. Harper fired a good chance at the other end and Diop had a diving header ruled offside. James made amends for his earlier error when Mark Halsey ruled a handball in the Portsmouth area and awarded Reading a penalty. Nicky Shorey stepped up to take the spot kick but David expertly saved it and that was Reading’s chance gone to take the lead.

Portsmouth 2-2 Reading (Dave Kitson 48 minutes)

Hreidarsson put Portsmouth back into the lead. The defender outjumping Hahnemann to put the ball in the back of the net.

Portsmouth 3-2 Reading (Hreidarsson 55 minutes) 

Benjani however was determined to receive the man of the match accolade, and with an amazing solo run that wrong footed 3 Reading defenders scored to complete his hattrick. Speaking after the game he commented that “When i was in France, we won 8-4 against Nantes”

Portsmouth 4-2 Reading (Benjani 70 minutes)

Five minutes later Portsmouth decided that having been stunned by an attempted fightback from Reading, to move up a couple of gears. Niko Kranjkar made sure his name ended up on the scoresheet after heading in a Sean Davis cross.

Portsmouth 5-2 Reading (Kranjkar 75 minutes)

For those fans that normally prefer to leave 10-20 minutes early before a a football match ends to avoid traffic and rush hour, if they had done it here, they would of missed another four goals. Reading were not quite finished and a James Harper long range effort deflected off of Shane Long to give to falsely give Reading a glimmer of hope.

Portsmouth 5-3 Reading (Long 79 minutes)

Shuan Davis having set up Kranjkar for Portsmouth last goal, decided to get on the scoresheet himself.

Portsmouth 6-3 Reading (Davis 81 minutes)

In stoppage time, with both sides attacking to their fullest there were still more goals to come as the title of this piece suggests. Rosnoir brought down Kranjcar and  Sulley Muntari made sure he did not make the same mistake as Nicky Shorey at the other end, dispatching this footballing present giving to him in a bow from referee Mark Haseley. The Fratton Park faithful were screaming out “We want eight” as you do coming from your fans, but 7 goals was going to be the final tally for the Harry Redknapps side. While the final say went to Reading if not the three points.

Portsmouth 7-3 Reading (Muntari 90 minutes)

Having let in 7 goals, Reading did not want the scoreline to remain the same and demoralise them for the remaining games. Nicky Shorey who failed to score from the spot, did finally score a goal, firing a deflected 4th before the final whistle.

Portsmouth 7-4 Reading (Shorey 90 minutes-phew!)

In a post match interview Harry Redknapp compared his side to Real Madrid when they trounced Eintracht Frankfurt back in the 1960 European cup final. “I said to Tony Adams 7-3 was Real Madrid  against Eintracht Frankfurt at Hampden park; Francissco Gento, Alfredo Di Stefano, Ferenc Puskas, Jose Santa Maria- Sean Davis, Sulley Muntari” Maybe this will be the first and only time the likes of Sean Davis and Sulley Muntari will be compared to the Real Madrid legends but they are both fast becoming Fratton Park favourites. Steve Coppell’s side who last season had reached a point and a place away from European qualification are finding their second season in the top flight extremly more than difficult, with the loss of Steve Sidwell not helping matters. Though if we look to their spending last summer, they spent £3.1 million on players whereas Harry Redknapp’s south coast Real Madrid side had spent £30 million on players. Judging from this match it showed who had spent the most.

Filed under: Reading, football, portsmouth, soccer , football, sports