The pain, the pain of it all! Rovers 1-1 Man Utd (with extended highlights)

By: David | April 20th, 2008

One of the comments in Jim’s liveblog was “Friedel for President” - I couldn’t agree more. Friedel has to be one of the most underrated keepers in the world, and we’ll miss him when his time is up, especially as our defence looks really shakey in recent times.

Our Saviour!!!

Santa Cruz (who else?) put us ahead with a toepoke from Pedersen’s long throw, and having not seen the game (girlfriend gets priority apparently), I get the impression that it was practically one way traffic for most of the time then on. Friedel saved from Ronaldo, Tevez and O’Shea but could not keep out Tevez’s equaliser 3 minutes from time. Tevez both denied us a huge win, and he may well have won United the title. This is especially annoying - how great would it be if we were the team to help deny United the title?

But it makes you think - just one pass or a moment of brilliance by one of our players could have given us a second goal and a historic victory, but (Santa Cruz apart), we seem to lack that kind of player. Bentley and Pedersen have got the technique but perhaps not the brain, and our central midfield isn’t exactly inspiring. If I were Sparky I’d be tempted to spend the majority of his funds on a match winning central midfielder - a true flair player. If anything we are too much of a team, in the sense that almost everyone has to play well for us to win. Too many times this season we haven’t been able to turn draws into wins because there was noone on the field who could really take the bull by the horns. We lack someone unique and special, particularly in the middle, so can we find someone?

I have one idea, and I’d love to see him at Ewood. I’ll continue in my next post.

Highlights: