Where to now for Blackburn Rovers?

When a club is relegated from their country's top division, any attempts to remedy that situation are based upon a number of key principles.

Firstly, one can most often safely assume that the club's owners want the club to succeed. Pursuant to this, those same owners must also be capable of understanding the ramifications of relegation both on their balance sheets and fan emotions. An ability – and willingness – to change what isn't working has usually led these owners to become one of the more wealthy people in the world; it should be expected owners can bring the same flexibility to sports business as well. As we well know, the last point is hardly a given.

Which brings us to a confusing point: how do we understand Venky's, the poultry-farming owners of relegated Blackburn Rovers? Since coming to power in October 2010, the company has almost wilfully alienated Rovers' proud fanbase with a procession of curious statements, odd transfer dealings and, most damningly, casual negligence.

When an autocrat has their subjects' best interests at heart, guessing their next move becomes a mite easier. So obscure have their methods been, predicting Venky's next move would have made Nostradamus rich beyond counting. However, it is obvious that with a prodigious fall from relative safety and a last-ditch escape from relegation last season, that changes must be made at Ewood Park lest the one-time Premier League champions recede into irrelevance.

With that said, here's some suggestions how Blackburn Rovers can move forward:

Keep Yakubu and Grant Hanley

Given Rovers' reluctance to commit to new or significant salaries, to think that Yakubu can stay at Rovers is extremely optimistic. The slowly-self-inflating front man had a great year for his new club, scoring 16 EPL goals this season in a return to form that would have surprised Everton and Nigeria fans alike. If he was able to produce that many goals from a team whose major creative sparks, outside Junior Hoilett, were David Dunn and Mauro Formica, he should own the Championship. His salary should be the one expensive one Rovers wear in hopes of a quick springboard back to the elite league.

Hanley is opposite: a young central defender who progressed through the Rover youth system and earned his position with a string of encouraging performances. He's good, and even better, he's cheap. With Hanley on board – and perhaps even Scott Dann, whose relegation record suggests some clubs aren't likely to touch him – Rovers should have one of the better central defensive duos in the second tier. Which brings us to …

Stop the bleeding

Both literally – they've allowed 76 goals so far this season despite the presence of Dann, Hanley and former England goalkeeper Paul Robinson – and figuratively. Rovers, through the actions and words of ownership, manager, ghost-managing player agent and even vociferous fans, have shown an alarming talent for scoring PR own-goals with a Richard Dunne-like frequency.

The one thing you can say for Rovers management is that they have (until recently) presented a relatively united front. However, squad faith in the manager varies from non-existent to excellent and fan faith in anyone attached to the club is like finding last night's thunderstorm. Make of West Ham and Messrs Gold and Sullivan what you will, but on relegation last term they clearly laid out their plans for a return to the Premiership. Rovers fans need – and deserve – the same clarity.

On-field, the situation is much easier to remedy: in direct opposition to his predecessor, Kean has promulgated an intriguing ability to keep Rovers scoring. However, it has come at the expense of any defensive stolidity at all – a fact highlighted by the departures of Phil Jones, Christopher Samba and Ryan Nelsen. Even Steven Nzonzi, who for the last two seasons has exhibited a lot of promise, was expelled from the squad as Rovers gazed at relegation. He defines rangy and can deconstruct many opposition forward moves – he needs to play.

Freeing the beast within Nzonzi comes with the one, eternal Rovers caveat: everything depends on if they can afford to keep him.

Publicly define Jerome Anderson's role

Only three years ago, Jerome Anderson was a football agent. On his books he had Steve Kean, amidst a plethora of middling-to-impressive football names. Also, he fronted his son Myles. Many of Blackburn's signings are alleged to have derived from Anderson's dealings; he is also rumoured to have been behind the firing of Sam Allardyce and subsequent installation of Kean. Suggestions of his intimate involvement with ownership only strengthened when Rovers signed Myles Anderson despite the player failing to make an impression at SPL side Aberdeen.

No-one outside the Rovers hierarchy is fully aware of how deeply Jerome Anderson's tendrils infiltrate the club. One thing is certain: such opacity suits him, but damages the club's credibility. Venky's need to prioritise either their relationship with Anderson or the club's public face.

Fix the Kean problem

Image courtesy: telegraph.co.uk

Kean's hands probably aren't clean of Allardyce's demise, nor have his tactics (which resemble a kitchen colander) inspired fan confidence. Despite incessant furore he remains respected as a coach, if not necessarily as a manager. He should be respected for getting the best from Yakubu, Hanley and Hoilett; this is balanced by his confusing relationship with Samba, Nelsen and Salgado.

In the Championship, he should have fewer gnarled veterans and more of his own foot soldiers; this in itself should promise a reasonable season. However, in sections of the media and much of Rovers fandom, his reputation is below basement level. He remains, though, obviously ownership's man.

Firing him would quickly remove the second-biggest trigger for fan ire, but may not actually provoke a better response from a team which could navigate the likes of Cardiff City and Watford quite well. Like transfers, the earlier a decision is made, the better for the club.

Kean credibility needs a quick and powerful salve. Much like Terry Connor at Wolves, he is in many ways the victim of circumstance, the puppet for faceless men. What stands against him is his alleged role in creating that situation. It is Venky's position to create a situation in which their man can thrive, but they have hardly done so. Clarifying Anderson's role and publicly drafting their plan for negotiating the Championship would allow much more perspective – and provide grounds to remove Kean should he continue to prove inconvenient or incapable.

'Tis the Season

... to sack managers.

Blackburn's Sam Allardyce is the latest manager to be given his pink P45 slip, made redundant by the new ownership of the northwest club, the Indian Poultry company Venky's. Early tips suggested he was removed due to a conflict between the club's ambitions - a fifth-placed finish next term - and their transfer ambitions - five million available and two guys they'd strongly suggested he buy.

The club's new chair, Anuradha Desai, spoke to ESPN Soccernet in an attempt to dispel those rumours but rumblings persist they are keen on Middlesbrough's Scottish striker Kris Boyd and San Jose's flamboyant Brazilian Geovanni. All reports of the firing mentioned meetings between board and manager had left both sides malcontent but if we believe that Allardyce's reaction to being instructed who to buy wasn't the reason for his departure, then suddenly reasons for Big Sam's termination aren't apparent. Blackburn have performed well, if not overpoweringly in the league and hadn't spent money on players for over a year. Allardyce's development of highly rated youngsters Steven Nzonzi and Phil Jones could well pay dividends as they may soon be snaffled by big clubs as each approaches their national team squad.

He may well be replaced permanently by his number two, Steve Kean, who has taken temporary charge of Rovers, as Venky's has stated they're looking for a British manager. This places Chris Hughton, recently of Newcastle United, in the frame and habitual candidates Sven Goran Eriksson and Diego Maradona mercifully ruled out. This came as part of a statement in which they floated a possible "X-factor" type audition-come-scouting process that could be turned into a TV show, a project already tried in Australia.

The man "better suited to managing Real Madrid or Inter" may though fall on his feet. A specialist in avoiding relegation who turned a bunch of also-rans into over-achievers at Bolton, he may have a ready-made challenge at West Ham where boss Avram Grant has reportedly been given two games to save both his job and the Hammers' season. West Ham have been almost uniformly awful this term despite captain Scott Parker playing out of his skin and youthful promise from Junior Stanislas. A proto-Allardyce, take-charge type would be perfect should the Israeli that David James calls "Yoda" receive his marching orders. Quiet Man Hughton has also been strongly linked as the preferred candidate for Messrs Gold & Sullivan due to his experience last year, where he took Newcastle back to the Premiership in their first attempt.

The Hammers' steadfastness at the bottom of the table is a slight puzzle given they appear more talented - if paper thin - than several of their competitors for the three relegation spots. Between last season with Portsmouth and West Ham this year, Grant's League record in 2010 has been abysmal. He has, however, taken Portsmouth to the FA Cup Final and West Ham to this year's League Cup final showing his Cups form remains nearly indomitable. Unfortunately for Yoda, it's the Premiership and the money it brings that interests Gold & Sullivan meaning Grant's status remains perilous at best.

Other managers under pressure include Roberto Martinez at Wigan, Aston Villa's new boss Gerard Houllier, Fulham's Mark Hughes and most prominently the Gentleman of English football, Liverpool's Roy Hodgson. Poor performances or an inability to match last season's standing dogs each of them. Although the pressure has eased on Roberto Mancini in the blue half of Manchester, he finds his job mildly in question because of the style of play he's conducted at Eastlands. His consistent use of defensive tactics has frustrated fans and players alike but a recent run of results has probably ensured his position for now.

Each boss finds himself under the magnifying glass as the January transfer window approaches because it's now that clubs start thinking about shelling out on new players. For the Hammers, where would the sense be in giving Grant money to spend on the players his style of play demands when the style encouraged by Allardyce or Hughton requires different skill sets?

As Christmas approaches, it still remains to be seen if one or more of these men has more time to spend with his family during the cold English winter. With so many bosses feeling the pressure it's likely that there will be at least one gaffer dismissed this year and with the Winter Sales - and the point of no return - just around the corner, that looks to be coming sooner rather than later.

We'd love to hear your comments as to who you think will be the first manager sacked. Who would you replace them with?

Game 12: Blackburn Rovers at Newcastle

Wednesday's Premiership encounter between Blackburn and Newcastle was a match between two solid, physical teams - only to be expected from a Sam Allardyce squad and a side fielding Mike Williamson, Andy Carroll and Kevin Nolan. It ended, as it begun, with a Newcastle United lapse in concentration costing them a goal and with Blackburn taking the points at St. James' Park as Newcastle's home form turned from middling into mediocre.

Another loss to mid-table opposition at St. James' Park suggests last year's bastion remains just that: a thing of the past. This Rovers team are perhaps the most well-suited side to defeat a Newcastle team that this year has thrived on three things: physicality, a solid midfield and a mature defence based on positioning and efforts of will rather than on athleticism. The form of Andy Carroll so worried Allardyce that he employed three centre-backs rather than his standard pair Ryan Nelsen and Christopher Samba. It was a winning move even though the man they sought to stop, Carroll, was still Newcastle's most threatening piece in a chess game less about guile than about out-and-out battlefield slaughter. As Hughton's queen (it's the hair, you understand. Oh and also his ability to wreak devastation on opponents) he was less-supported by his wide men as in recent matches even though the whole side was quite Andy-Conscious. He was able to convert a header from a Barton free kick all but ensuring a worthy England call later this week.

The Newcastle midfield receiving plaudits for its form this year were outplayed. With Barton, Nolan and Tiote not a trio ever to be mistaken for Happy Feet they were not so mcuh outhustled as outclassed as Rovers wide men Brett Emerton and Morten Gamst Pedersen proved effective against a midfield so effective three days previously against Arsenal.

The two goals resulted from simple lapses in concentration from Tiote and Mike Williamson. Joey Barton had a lapse in concentration of a different kind: he will be suspended for his gut-punch to Pedersen after presenting a restrained, mature front for a third of the season. Fans and managers alike were hoping that this newfound maturity could last - even though he has shown remorse his actions once again call into question his temperament. Indeed, that maturity may well be the watchword for the Toon this year.

This season has been and will continue to be a year of maturation for the Newcastle United squad and for the faithful. They sport - for the most part - a more wise game plan than when they were relegated. Mike Ashley has justifiably refused to offer The Understated One a long-term contract as a result of one year's effective management. It appears caution is the watchword on Tyneside and it would appear to be working.

Just as in life, maturing doesn't happen as the result of a decision but of experience: ask any parent. Rather than an alchemical process where a mentor adds ingredients and suddenly lead is turn'd to gold, the obtaining of wisdom is gentle steeping which increases in richness and flavour as the subject is exposed to it. The process starts, there are ups and downs and the result is due to the journey rather than any decision made along the way. The journey maketh the man. Perhaps it's similar of Newcastle United this year: the journey needs to maketh the team.