Lancashire Hot Pot

After being outmuscled and outfought ultimately by one highly physical side from Lancashire, so we head off to Ewood Park, a ground where we have a mixed record albeit fond memories of our promotion in 2000. We lost 1-0 there last season, but a Di Canio-inspired side reversed that scoreline in 2003/4 thanks to a flying Herminator header early on. For some reason a Carl Leaburn goal in a surprise win there in the early-1990s also springs to mind, coming I recall at the time when Jack Walker had begun to splash the cash in a big way.

I suspect it's not the Lancashire air which produces two such hard sides (I think Hidetoshi Nakata was brought up elsewhere for example), but it's useful in a way to play Blackburn so quickly after the painful performance last weekend to see whether lessons have been learnt.

However with Darren Bent hopefully fit and well again, the need to play a 2nd striker has been reduced somewhat since he has already proved he is more than capable of holding the line alone. Other than possibly replacing Perry with El Karkouri, and Spector potentially losing his place back to Powell (a backward step in my view), I don't foresee any huge changes in our line-up and rightly so since our away form is the least of our problems.

It will no doubt be a fairly dire affair, but at least games against Blackburn offer otherwise law-abiding players the opportunity to kick Robbie Savage into the air, an act which would land us mere mortals in court, despite the obvious temptation.

It is perhaps paradoxical that most fans will watch this game (or more likely 'listen to') with far more confidence than the upcoming Carling Cup tie at the Valley. Clearly our phenomenal away form will have to end somewhere but if we get stuck in early and get the ball down and play, then there is no reason why I can't be celebrating the 'joy of six' at noon on Saturday.