Marked for Cristian Cordova
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings9 Sep 2030
Successful dribbles: 49. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings9 Sep 2030
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.88 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market9 Sep 2030
Only the photograph left for Jake Garrett
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jake Garrett will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Blackburn Rovers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad9 Sep 2030
Cruz Ibeh is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad9 Sep 2030
Andri Guðjohnsen was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad9 Sep 2030
Yuki Ohashi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match7 Sep 2030
It needed Yuki Ohashi to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Notts County, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Market9 Sep 2030
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Andri Guðjohnsen signs something — a contract at Blackburn Rovers or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings26 Aug 2030
Successful dribbles: 48. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The terraces26 Aug 2030
Anger at Blackburn Rovers spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad26 Aug 2030
Andri Guðjohnsen was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad26 Aug 2030
Thomas Allen is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Market26 Aug 2030
The name of Jake Garrett has come up in conversations Blackburn Rovers were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad26 Aug 2030
Hayden Carter falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad26 Aug 2030
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Blackburn Rovers know it.
Loan watch26 Aug 2030
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Blackburn Rovers, and 0 appearances in 10 say he has earned the hearing.
Player ratings26 Aug 2030
Marked 7.45. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings12 Aug 2030
Nobody could get near Igor Tyjon
Successful dribbles: 45. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad12 Aug 2030
Cruz Ibeh is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad12 Aug 2030
Andri Guðjohnsen was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad12 Aug 2030
Hayden Carter falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match10 Aug 2030
It finished 2‑0, and it was Dion De Neve’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Blackburn Rovers.
Squad12 Aug 2030
At 27 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Player ratings12 Aug 2030
Ninety minutes of Hayden Carter at his very best
Marked 8.10. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Blackburn Rovers.
Player ratings12 Aug 2030
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.03, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Market12 Aug 2030
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Blackburn Rovers will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Apr 2030
A fracture rules Andri Guðjohnsen out for 64 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Blackburn Rovers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market22 Apr 2030
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Player ratings22 Apr 2030
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings22 Apr 2030
Ryoya Morishita, 33, rolls back the years — 8.05
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.05 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad22 Apr 2030
Andri Guðjohnsen was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market22 Apr 2030
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Blackburn Rovers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad22 Apr 2030
Hayden Carter falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match20 Apr 2030
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ryoya Morishita. 1‑0 against Wycombe Wanderers, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad22 Apr 2030
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Blackburn Rovers are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Feb 2030
Finley Taylor damages knee ligaments — 80 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 80 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Player ratings11 Feb 2030
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.74, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings11 Feb 2030
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market11 Feb 2030
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Blackburn Rovers is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad11 Feb 2030
Yasuto Wakizaka was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad11 Feb 2030
Words at Blackburn Rovers training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ki-Jana Hoever is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match9 Feb 2030
A 2‑1 win over Shrewsbury Town, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad11 Feb 2030
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Blackburn Rovers know it.
Market11 Feb 2030
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Andri Guðjohnsen’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings3 Dec 2029
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad3 Dec 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Blackburn Rovers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Dec 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Blackburn Rovers is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad3 Dec 2029
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ryan Hedges and Blackburn Rovers agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Dec 2029
Words at Blackburn Rovers training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ki-Jana Hoever is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market15 Oct 2029
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market15 Oct 2029
Only the photograph left for Luke Campbell
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Luke Campbell will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Blackburn Rovers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match13 Oct 2029
No end in sight to Blackburn Rovers's wait for a win
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Blackburn Rovers has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad15 Oct 2029
Andri Guðjohnsen was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match13 Oct 2029
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad15 Oct 2029
Words at Blackburn Rovers training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ryan Fredericks is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad15 Oct 2029
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad15 Oct 2029
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Blackburn Rovers are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Match13 Oct 2029
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against Coventry City? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.