A Rollercoaster Year
From “Venky’s out!” to “We are staying up!” to “Rovers won 6 in a row!” the contrasting songs bellowed out from the Blackburn End have reflected the fluctuating fortunes of Blackburn Rovers in 2024.
At this stage last year, Rovers were 15th with 31 points, only 10 points above the relegation zone. In contrast, Rovers end 2024 in 5th place with 38 points, well and truly in the play-off picture. That six-game winning run certainly has something to do with it.
That being said, there are parallels between the end of 2023 and the end of 2024. Rovers’ six-game winning run has been followed by defeats to Millwall, a 2–2 draw against Sunderland, and a defeat to Hull, again. This year’s defeat to Hull on the final game of 2024 makes it three games without a win. Last year’s 3–2 defeat to Hull to end 2023 meant Rovers had lost four matches on the bounce. We certainly don’t end the year well. Rovers wouldn’t win again in the league until John Eustace’s first game in charge at the beginning of February.
The Christmas period last year and what followed brought an end to the Jon Dahl Tomasson era at Blackburn Rovers. I have no doubt that he is a great tactician — if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have won the Swedish league with Malmö and wouldn’t be in charge of the Swedish men’s national team now. However, it seems he was an awful man-manager. He had fallen out with key players, including Lewis Travis, who was sent out on loan under his reign, and by the time he was sacked in February, he had lost the dressing room. His first season saw us play some good but risky football, and we finished 7th, but it didn’t come off the second time around. After all, lightning doesn’t strike twice, especially not with Blackburn Rovers. JDT was sacked after Rovers’ 2–1 home defeat to QPR, and John Eustace was brought in. Having been controversially sacked by Birmingham City, Eustace was tasked with keeping us up, having slipped to just 6 points above the relegation zone by the time of JDT’s departure.
After watching from the stands as Rovers beat Stoke 3–1, it wouldn’t be until Easter Monday that Eustace picked up his first official win in that mesmerising 5–1 victory at Sunderland. That being said, Rovers had drawn six out of the nine games in-between. As well as that, Rovers managed to take Newcastle United to penalties in the FA Cup 5th round, thanks to a late Sammie Szmodics goal. It was probably thanks to Sammie Szmodics’ goals that Rovers did eventually stay up.
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After getting hammered 5–0 at Bristol City, Rovers fell to just 3 points above the drop zone, and with promotion-chasing Leeds and Leicester to come, things didn’t look too good. Those two games happened to be the only two we won; it’s funny how football works out! Szmodics’ late goal at Leeds snatched a vital win in the aftermath of the Bristol City defeat, as Rovers became the first team to win at Elland Road since Leeds’s relegation from the Premier League. Victory at Leicester, thanks to a Szmodics brace on the final day of the season, secured Championship safety for another year. For a team that missed out on the playoffs on goal difference 12 months before, last season had to be considered a failure. What had gone wrong, we may never know. But one thing was for certain: Things had to change over the summer to avoid being in this situation again. And boy, did things change!
For the first time in several years, Rovers had a fantastic transfer window despite the inevitable departures. Sammie Szmodics joined Ipswich Town on a permanent deal after making 48 appearances and netting 33 goals last season — the most for a Blackburn Rovers player since Alan Shearer! With Rovers in a relegation battle for most of the second half of the season, Szmodics stepped up time after time and dug his teammates out as Rovers did just enough to secure Championship safety. His two goals on the final day also earned him the Championship Golden Boot with 27 league goals.
It’s fair to say panic then set in. Where would the goals come from now? Well, Rovers looked to find replacements with Yuki Ohashi, Makhtar Gueye, Amario Cozier-Duberry, Todd Cantwell, Lewis Baker, Andreas Weimann, Owen Beck, Danny Batth, and Balazs Toth all being brought in. In addition, Lewis Travis returned from his loan spell at Ipswich and was handed the armband straight back. Balazs Toth has yet to make a first-team appearance for the club, but his presence has certainly given Aynsley Pears a kick up the backside, and he has kept 10 clean sheets already this season compared to the 7 he kept last campaign. Todd Cantwell has found his spark again, Owen Beck looks ready to replace Andy Robertson at Liverpool already, and Andi Weimann secured Rovers’ first point at Turf Moor in a number of years. Up front, the squad is lacking cutting edge with Makhtar Gueye having just the one league goal, but if Ohashi can get back into the form he started the season with, we could be on to a winner.
The highly anticipated start to the season arrived, and the 4–2 win over newly-promoted Derby couldn’t have been a better way of kicking things off. It wouldn’t be until the trip to Coventry on October 1st that Rovers would lose their first game. At that point, Rovers were 2nd, and had they not lost 5 out of 7 matches in the next month, they would certainly still be in the contest for automatic promotion. However, despite feelings of déjà vu amongst the fanbase, Rovers responded with a 6-game winning run, triumphing over Middlesbrough, Leeds, and Luton.
But of course, in true Rovers fashion, everything came crashing down at The Den. Rovers came off the wrong end of a 96th-minute winner in a game that was far from a classic. Five days later, Rovers were the architects of more late drama as Leonard pinched a 90th-minute equaliser against Sunderland in front of a bumper crowd at Ewood.
The defeat to Hull ends 2024 on a negative, but there is no time to dwell. With a trip to Leeds and then a battle with Burnley in front of a sold-out Ewood Park to come in the next 5 days, there is plenty of chance to put things right. It would certainly be a Rovers thing to lose to Millwall and Hull, then beat Leeds and Burnley!
We can’t get away from the disaster that was last season, but things are on the up. There’s no doubt about it that the last three results haven’t been what we wanted, and there are some incredibly difficult games coming up, but we are in an extremely strong position. If Eustace gets what he needs in the transfer window, then who knows what could happen.
