Where do we go now?

By: David | June 6th, 2008

I may have mentioned before that alongside my support for Rovers, I also have a liking for Spanish Liga side Valencia.

If you know anything about Spanish football, you will know that it’s been quite a season for the club. A brief summary if I may:
-Loosing first game of the season at home to local rivals
-Coach Quique Flores getting sacked despite being 4th in the league
-Successor Ronald Koeman sacking 3 senior players
-Ex-captain David Albelda (one of the trio) trying to sue the club as a result
-The resulting case setting up players from the squad taking sides with the club or Albelda
-Koeman’s reign being a disaster, accomploshing less in the league in 5 months than his predeccessor did in 5 games
-Despite this the team win the Spanish club
-Star player Villa wanting to leave
-New arrival Banega being caught up in a dodgy video scam
-Summer signing Fernandes getting into a fight at a club
-Koeman being sacked and caretaker Voro saving the team from relegation
-Winger Joaquin saying Koeman is 99% to blame for him not making the Spain squad

I could go on…..

Nevertheless, Cesar over at the Valencia Offside (a fantastic read if I may say so) has had quite a job to do. In contrast, since taking over Blackburn Offside Jim and I have had little news to talk of.

What a difference a few days make. The manager’s gone, all our best players are suddenly linked with other clubs (not necessarily bigger ones), and we have no real idea who could be in charge come the first game in August. We don’t know who will be on the team sheet either.

All my hopes regarding exciting summer signings are in tatters too…..

Anyway, I’ve had a few days to clear my head. This isn’t the end of the world, thankfully, though the board have some huge decisions to make in the coming weeks, or we could be in trouble.

The good news is that talk of Sam Allardyce taking over has died down. So we haven’t been linked with Slavan Bilic (a huge shame in my opinion), but talk of Paul Ince coming up two divisions to take over is about.

And how about the prospect of Alan Shearer taking over? It could happen. The Times also mentioned Dick Advocat. Watching Zenit St Petersberg winning the UEFA Cup was hugely entertaining (beating Bayern 4-0!), and his brand of football is one of the purest and most beautiful about today. It would be nice if he brought along some of the Zenit team too….

However, I do worry that given a choice, John Williams will play it safe with Allardyce or Steve McClaren. Sure, we may not get relegated, but years of “Fulham syndrome” could follow. By that I mean lower mid-table mediocrity, rubbish signings, no money, route-one football, and last on MOTD (arguebly the latter is already true). This play-it-safe strategy I think cost us Sparky. I don’t think he felt that the board were as ambitious as he is, and he may have done all he could.

I would like us to take a risk, and be a bit exciting. I want someone with ambition and a winning mentality. I want someone who values good football. I want someone who can convince good players to come to Rovers (and our existing ones to stay). Even if it doesn’t work out, and we (God forbid) end up near the bottom, at least we could say to ourselves, “We gave it a go”.

If we got relegated with Steve McClaren in charge, there would be no consolation at all.

So my managerial picks are, in order:

1) Slaven Bilic (unlikely as it is)
2) Dick Advocat
3) Paul Ince
4) Alan Shearer
5) Roberto Martinez (of Swansea City)

Give your thoughts. Is there anyone (realistically) availiable who I’ve missed out?