A Little Bit of Chelsea Up North

Mark Hughes is a dour and unsmiling man with the dress and demeanour of an undertaker, but it cannot be denied that he is making a considerable success of his job as manager of Blackburn Rovers, who following their 1-0 victory over Arsenal at Ewood Park, qualified for 5th place in the Premiership and dreams of the Champions League.

There is no secret to Hughes’ success. It is simply a matter of knowing the individual and collective strengths and weaknesses of the players and ensuring that, as a team, they play to them. No sane person could pretend that Blackburn are capable of competing technically with Arsenal – indeed it would be difficult to nominate a single player (with the possible exception of Bellamy) whom Arsene Wenger might be interested in signing – but what they have proved is that if you work exceptionally hard and defend effectively in numbers, you can restrict the number of chances available to the opposition and once that is achieved, you hope to nick a goal at the other end.

And that was the pattern of the game. Arsenal had most of the possession – over 60% of it in the second half – but they were faced throughout with at least two banks of four defenders protecting goalkeeper Brad Friedel. There were no frills. It took Blackburn just 6 seconds to commit their first offence and overall the statistics show that they conceded 23 fouls (though given the abysmal performance of referee Uriah Rennie, including turning down a clear penalty when Fabregas was tripped in the box, it is doubtful how much credence can be given to these figures).

As for chances, the statistics indicate that Blackburn had only four goal attempts in the entire game (2 of them off target) while Arsenal, despite the close attention and uncompromising challenges of Hughes’ side, evidently carved out 8 goal attempts (though it seemed to be more than that in the last half hour alone). On that basis, it could be argued that if Arsenal had taken even 25% of their chances, they would have won the game, and been spared the continuing media speculation about the reasons for their disappointing form (especially away from home) in the Premiership and the future of Thierry Henry.

Blackburn fans won’t be concerned about that of course. What matters to them is that they got the three points and the victory validates their strategy. And in fairness, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger acknowledged in his post-match interview that Blackburn, or any other team, are entitled to play in any manner they choose.

It was not pretty. It was not entertaining. It was not an occasion for the purists. But it was effective. And successful.

Rather Chelsea, in fact.