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Saturday 28th October. Following the injury suffered last week against Preston and his subsequent operation, Delroy Facey is already back in training and may be back in contention in a few weeks. This is slightly better news for a team shorn of almost its entire strikeforce for the visit of Blackburn Rovers today and again Macari fielded a 5-3-2 formation with Gorré and Baldry supposedly playing up front, although in reality this was something more like a 5-5-0 system. Martin Smith and Chris Hay were deemed to have recovered sufficiently from their illness to be named as substitutes, but we could have done with a recognised striker in the starting eleven. In a game where I feared a serious drubbing from one of the promotion favourites Town competed extremely well making Blackburn look quite ordinary at times through some strong determined tackling and did a very good job containing ex Manchester United striker Mark Hughes. Blackburn started like a train and Nico Vaesen had to be at his best to keep out 5th minute efforts from Ostenstad and Flitcroft, but gradually Town began to snuff out the threat and began to look more threatening themselves. There were chances at both ends and in the 12th minute Chris Lucketti had a goal bound header cleared off the line by Damien Johnson and from a Kozluk cross Simon Baldry volleyed narrowly wide a few minutes later. It was end to end stuff as Blackburn switched play to the opposite end of the pitch and Nico Vaesen did well to thwart David Dunn’s powerfully driven shot and on 20 minutes when Vaesen was finally beaten ex Barnsley man Craig Hignett was denied by the woodwork. In a season where we have been starved of excitement for the most part this was exhilarating stuff as Town tried to prove that there may not be a huge gap between success and failure in this division. Of the two keepers Vaesen was the busier as Blackburn did manage to get a good proportion of their chances on target whereas Town were more threatening to the lower of the Panasonic Stand than John Filan. Rob Kozluk worked himself some good space on the edge of the Blackburn area before rifling his shot over the bar while at the other end good work from Vaesen denied Damien Johnson a goal. Such is our luck at the moment right on the stroke of half time Ben Thornley finally beat the Blackburn back line only to see the ball rebound off the post and out of play rather than into the back of the net. With our propensity to let stupid goals in around half-time we should perhaps be thankful that for once at least we were creating and not conceding. Typical of ex Premiership players, Mark Hughes had a rather petulant display and seemed more intent on getting his markers Lucketti and Gray into the referee’s notebook and the marking duties were alternated between the 2 centre backs. This was a good ploy even though Hughes did eventually succeed in getting Lucketti booked and this was tough on Lucketti who earlier seemed to be elbowed by the prematurely greying Welshman who should have walked for his indiscretion yet he was just yellow carded. Town continued to compete well in the second half although both sides saw less goalmouth action and a game that I feared would be a heavy defeat started to look as though it could be a creditable draw or possibly even an unlikely win. Michael Senior was brought on in the 66th minute for his first team debut in place of Scott Sellars and he looked very self assured and certainly not out of his depth. It was a shame that his debut only lasted 7 minutes before Blackburn took the lead. Following yet another Town attack Henning Berg gained good distance with his headed clearance and found former Southampton stiker Egil Ostenstad who raced through the near vacant midfield area. With the defence horribly out of position he seemed to foul Jenkins as he approached the edge of the penalty area but once again referee David Pugh was found wanting and allowed play to continue as Ostenstad shot past the defenceless Vaesen. This was just what Town didn’t need and was undeserved and shows why there is almost a division between the two teams, they can convert some of their chances, and we can’t. When you’re bottom of the league this is just how the luck seems to go. To their credit Town didn’t give up and continued to try to salvage a point from the game and Rob Kozluk almost did so with a couple of minutes to go. A vicious snap shot from around 20 yards out on the right hand side of the box unfortunately passed just inches wide of the far post with the keeper well beaten. Once again the players were applauded from the pitch following a spirited and gutsy performance, but this effort is going unrewarded with points going begging particularly in home games. We have failed to score in the last 5 games now and the league position will not improve until they turn good performances into winning performances. We are almost exactly a third of the way through the season now and just one win in 15 games is a sorry return indeed. The gap to safety continues to grow with many of the teams above us collecting a point today, and this included resurgent Sheffield Wednesday managing a highly creditable 3-3 draw against high flying Fulham following a 90th minute equaliser. Watford remain the divisions only unbeaten team following the surprise defeat for Fulham at home to Preston in midweek and there have been a few surprising results this season with many lower placed teams capable of beating some of the supposed high flyers. With the exception of Town that is!
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All words and thoughts by Chris except where stated.
A big thank you to Machala for putting up with me doing this and Ian for his support and my Mum for her proof reading.
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