This kit is part of Umbro’s recent “tailored by range”, it will be interesting to have a closer look and see the finer details, as it looks pretty bog standard from the first pictures:

2010/11 Blackburn Rovers Home Shirt

New star Phil Jones is seen above modelling the kit which will be out from July 1st, Jones made his Premier League debut last season against Chelsea at Ewood Park and went on to make nine first team appearances.

What do you think of the new Rovers kit?

Rovers red away kit has been popular with fans over recent years, so many will be happy to see it back for another year. It is made by Umbro and is part of their ‘Tailored by Umbro in England‘. The Crown Paints sponsored logo is pressed with individual letters to the shirt, rather than as one big label which is a good touch. There is black panelling down the sides of the shirt and thin black piping runs down the shoulders and sleeves.

The shirt is available to pre-order now and will be on sale from 29th April, Davin Dunn and Nikola Kalinic are shown above modeling the kit, the club have said that the design and fabric of the 10/11 away kit was approved of by the first team squad.

If ever a club needed a performance and a result this weekend, then we need one against the Wanderers of Wolverhampton this weekend. You may think that I’m overreacting here and yes, we may only be three games into the season, but with tricky fixtures in September, home against free spending Aston Villa and the return of Big bad Brad and Stevie W and also away at Everton, who have wisely re-invested some of the cash they got for captain Klingon, then we need to pick up three points against the Wolves. If you also think ahead to our nightmare October with games away from home against the Gooners, Renters and ManUre and a home game against…… Well I forget for the moment, but I’m sure it will come to me, then victory is a must.

It, like me, you thought that West Ham were for the taking and we should have gone with two up top, then surely we can’t expect a repeat performance with just having one up front. Not too sure why Benni was missing against WHAM, but if he’s fit then I’d like to see him and preferably Kalinic up front. Assuming we have a full and injury free squad to choose from then I’d go with the following

GK Robbo
RB Jacobsen
CB Samba
CB William Shakespeare

Gael- get out you’re bard!!

LB Chimbonda
LM Pedersen
CM Dunn
CM N’Zonzi
RM Bert
CF Benni
CF Kalinic

Not too sure who’ll make it onto the bench, but with seven places up for grabs Sam can pretty much keep his options open. If it was up to me and my time machine was fully functional, then I’d go for

Chris Sulley
Simon Barker
Mark Grew (gk)
John Millar
Ian Miller
Alan Irvine
Shearer (Duncan)

Wow- that doesn’t leave any room on the bench for Keith Andrews- who on closer inspection looks very much like one of the snap crackle and pop characters off a rice Krispie box. Also, he’s one of the few people who I can name off the top of my head who has played for both clubs, along with (according to my old man) Derek Doogan, Super Atko and Mr Ince who played for Wolves and cleaned the toilets at our place from June until December last year.

Despite being a fellow founder member of the football league way back when, our paths haven’t crossed too much over the past few seasons and they’ve started off this season with four points from as many games. They walked the championship last season, but don’t appear to have splashed the cash over the summer half as much as Birmingham. With my limited knowledge in toe, I jumped on a Wolves message board, wanting to find out a little more about the team, thoughts on the game and if they were happy with their four point haul from their four games against West Ham, Wigan, Birmingham and Hull. Unfortunately, the internet must have only just landed in the Black Country as it took a week to get some answers back off them, and they were half hearted responses at best. They must still be smarting from that 5-1 hammering we dished out to them at the beginning of the 2003-04 season.

1. Do you think you’re better equipped for the Premiership this time around?

Hopefully yes, we weren’t at all prepared for our last shot at it and I think we’ve got a better squad this time around to make a decent fist of it.

2. Four points from four games- pleased with your start? Or expecting more against some of the ’smaller’ premiership teams?

Reasonable, but should have beaten Hull, all over them like a rash and they may come back to haunt us.

3. Hopes for the season?

Better than 18th will do for starters.

4. Is Mick McCarthy the man for the job?

Yes with appropriate funding.

5. Will the board back him in January if things aren’t going to plan or will they look elsewhere?

Yes unless we have a ridiculous number of points.

6. What’s going to happen to Michael Mancienne now that Chelski have been banned from making any signings- will they want him back.

Chelsea will want Mancienne back. We have him to January, and I don’t know what the terms of the contract are after that, but if FIFA really want to punish Chelsea, then they will ensure the loan status does not favour them. Expect at least part of the sentence to be reduced though.

7. Player to watch?

All of them….Seriously…In terms of skill and the fact that he will at some stage score a corker Milijas, for work rate Keogh, and most likely to help you out, Craddock.

8. Blackburn player you’re most worried about?

Anyone who gets a shot on goal.

9. With WBA out of the equation this season, which team would you most like to beat?

Villa and Blues of course

10. Favourite curry?

Any, a toss up between Chicken Pathia, Jalfrezi or Dupiaza

11. Famous Wolves fans

Robert Plant and Suzi Perry- not a patch on Jim Bowen and that chap out of Brookside then!

12. Prediction for the match?

1-1

As I said, not the most enlightening of responses, so perhaps they’re all worried that they’ll get battered- although they’ve sold out their allocation of 3,000 tickets so I expect a decent atmosphere. We haven’t played each other much over the past ten years or so, but when we have this is what has happened. I also remember a game at Ewood in our promotion season of 92′ when we were going through that dodgy patch of losing six games on the spin following Mike Newell’s broken leg. I think we were drawing one each which would have got us back on track when Matt Dickens somehow let a last minute shot from Paul Birch somehow slip between his fingers and end up in the back of the net. Safe to say, we went onto lose the match and Mr Dickens never played for us again.

03/01/2000

Blackburn 1 Wolves 1
Ostenstaad Naylor

08/04/2000

Wolves 2 Blackburn 1
Muscat Duff
Neilsen

18/11/2000

Blackburn 1 Wolves 0
Dunn pen

21/04/2001

Wolves 0 Blackburn 0

16/08/2003

Blackburn 5 Wolves 1
Amoruso Iversen
Thompson
Emerton
Cole (2)

07/01/2004

Wolves 2 Blackburn 2
Butler Cole
Rae Yorke

Out of the team that beat them 5-1 on the opening day some six years ago, only Brett Emerton is still at the club, with all our other goalscorers that day now long retired. Also the 125th anniversary game at Ewood in November 2000 saw the debut of Mr Friedel.

Right, so that’s it- lets get behind the lads on Saturday and cheer them to a much needed three points. Hopefully Suzi Perry will take me up on my offer of a curry and an evening of Ashes cricket on the Wii. Robert Plant can you hear me- your boys took one hell of a beating -hopefully. As a certain Alan Partridge might say- “Jurrasic Park”

Thanks to Saltysellars who kindly let me reproduce his preview for the Wolverhampton Wanderers game at Ewood this Saturday.

McCauley is currently playing for the Northern Ireland Under-19 team in a Four Nations tournament in Dublin, he played in his side’s Sunday night 2-0 victory against Turkey at Richmond Park.

Derry City have offered Darren a professional contract, but he has expressed a desire to play full-time football across the Channel and it looks like he will get this chance, with Big Sam wanting the player at Blackburn.

Read more at the Derry Journal online.

Throughout the history of football, in particular relating to West Ham and Rovers matches, there can be no other team that can be considered our “bogey team”. The team from East London take the honour by a legendary mile.

Saturday 11th March 1911 saw the first Rovers and Wham match up in East London. It was an FA Cup match which Rovers took the honours 3-2. It was a 4th round match and Rovers scorers were Latheron, Simpson and Davies and we won in front of a 20k crowd. For the record Rovers lost in the Semi Final at a neutral venue to Bradford City – game played at Bramhall Lane, Sheffield (maybe one or two of our senior statesmen were around !).

It wasn’t until 1924 that we played West Ham in the First Division. After such a long time we played them twice in a week. Drawing at home 0-0 in front of 5000 fans and then nipping down to the East End and winning 1-0 in front of 25000.

Right up until the late 1960’s, the current trend of results between these two teams was a reverse. Rover’s it was who were Wham’s nemesis. There were usually a lot of goals scored with Rovers recording wins like 8-2 and 5-2 away and at home results like 5-2 and 6-2.

Anyhow, my first experience of West Ham wasn’t until 1979. Our relegation season from Division 2. December 1978 couldn’t have gotten any worse when Rovers succumbed to the dingles 1-2 at Dingledome on Boxing Day. Over 23000 fans saw a Kevin Hird strike nullified by two scabby goals from our 6 fingered enemies. Although I was there at this game, I have only a recollection of the scorn poured at me and my dad as I wore my tracksuit, a blue and white number in the old Bee Hole End. On 30th December we travelled south and took a 4-0 whooping at the hands of a team that played football the proper way. Rovers were never to recover and even lost to Burnley 1-2 at Ewood and despite a final game 3 win streak we lost our place in the Division and suffered relegation.

Up and until the birth of the Premier League (1992/93 season), Rovers and Wham had several ding dong battles. The scores often went either way but one game stands out from the rest. Saturday 25th November 1989 – Rovers 5 Wham 4. A crowd of over 10000 saw goals from Scotty Sellars (2), Garner, Stapleton and Johnrose take the points. We drew the away game 1-1 with a goal from the magic left foot of Sellars. These games were played in the days of the Play Offs and we all know the heartbreak we Rovers fans suffered up until 1991/92.

The next game between us took place in the Premiership and is perhaps the start of the dominance they currently seem to have over us. Who can forget the red hot weather in a sun drenched Ewood Park that was then half way through its development into a modern day stadia ? That sunny September day in 1993 saw Wham record a 2-0 away win with a certain Lee Chapman amongst the scorers whilst we suffered a horror debut from a certain Paul Warhurst, who contrived to miss the goal from a yard out on more than 1 occasion.

That being that, we all know how that season progressed as Rovers cemented a place in the top 2 and as we did so I want to take you back to the away game at The Bolyn ground. Wednesday 27th April 1994 saw Rovers and Newcastle battling Man U for the runners up spot. Goals from Henning Berg and a young gangly centre back Ian Pearce saw Rovers record a 2-1 win on the same night Newcastle won 5-1 at home and Manure win 2-1 at Leeds. It guaranteed European football as well as seeing a club in progression make a statement of intent. It was also a club with Sir Jack Walker at the helm that would challenge the best and become the best, upsetting the football hierarchy to become the Peoples champions.

However despite all that has happened at Ewood we could never shake the Wham bogey. Since that game we have lost 14 games to Wham, have drawn 3 and won just 7. The most emphatic of those wins being a 7-1 stroll in the sun in October 2001. We just cannot seem to get any sort of result at West Ham away and this despite being the first goal scorers on many occasions.

Recently we have seen the likes of Tevez come and cheat 3 points from Ewood and that particular result still rankles in the throats of Rovers supporters. Even last season, Wham still managed to take a point despite the biggest battering I have witnessed to an away team for many a year when a single Keith Andrews strike equalised a quite brilliant strike from Mark Noble.

So, then and onto this seasons home game, what can we expect from Zola’s West Ham team ? I say this because all we ever hear about Wham is the link to England and 1966 and the football the then Wham players played to entertain football crowds oh as well as being the single English football club to personally win the World Cup for its country !

There is no doubt that Gianfranco Zola and Steve Clarke come with a fantastic football pedigree. They still have some quality players in their ranks. They will only bring a maximum of 3000 supporters and some of these still hang on to the tags created by the unlegendary Inter City Firm and the recent film Green Street. Whatever tag they do come with, they come North as a club in turmoil. Owned by Icelandic based businessmen and bankers, the club is heavily in debt. It is reported to have to sell players to balance their books although as yet there havent been any big name departures. There is no doubt they have a quality youth set up, Rovers being victim to young Sears scoring last season. There is NO Lucash Neill this season. out of contract he declined he offer of £50k a week from Zola and now finds himself UNEMPLOYED, oh how the mighty have fallen ! The off field problems have been exemplified this weeked as one of their players, Calum davenport, found himself and his mother victims of a knife attack. Lets hope BOTH make a full recovery.

In goal is Robbo’s opposition to the England number 1 slot. Bob Green is not the most sublime keeper but he is effective. The defence will more than likely be built around Upson, Collins, Spector and Gabbidon, Illunga is a quality full back and is dangerous.

The midfield is interesting. Noble and Kovac are the hub of operations. Parker, Dyer and Savio are all good players and support the forwards and defence alike very well. Up front they will have Cole, Faubert and no doubt an Italian superstar !

They do play good football and have already won away at Wolves very comfortably. I would expect them to come to Rovers and play good attractive football, they are not a team to sit back and counter attack they are built for speed and football through the middle.

Last season a young lad called Collison made a fantastic impression on football as he single-handedly kept Rovers at bay. I suspect this season Rovers are going to be a very effective force in the air due to the height factor and for me this is the reason why I expect Rovers to break the current Wham hoodoo.

It’s a simple must win game for me as we move into September.

2-1 Rovers.

Thanks to 1864roverite who kindly agreed to my reposting his match preview here, for all to see. The preview was originally written before the crowd trouble at Tuesday night’s game between West Ham & Millwall.

Chimbonda soon to be seen in Blue & White Halves Again

Coming in it seems is Pascal Chimbonda, a decent defender who has played at Tottenham and Wigan Athletic in recent years, impressing on the pitch, but not so much in the press. It looks like he will cost up to £2 million from Spurs, Chimbonda is supposed to have generated some interest from Portsmouth, who have finally completed their Al Fahim buy-out. I am not sure they will have enough cash in the bank to beat us to this one just yet though.

What your opinion of Gianfranco Zola, a man nobody seems to dislike. He’s doing quite well isn’t he?

Gianfranco is doing exceptionally well in difficult circumstances.

How are the finances at West Ham nowadays after all the talk of impending financial doom a few months back?

According to our CEO Scott Duxbury who spoke to KUMB.com in an exclusive interview at the end of last season, the club is now completely self-sufficient once again. Whilst the debts incurred by our previous owners (Messrs Gudmundsson and Magnusson) remain, they are now under control – although any money Zola wishes to spend this summer must be generated from player sales (hence the constant hawking of Matthew Upson in the press).

You don’t seem to have spent much money on transfers this summer. What do you think of your activity in the transfer market and have any of the players impressed in pre-season.

Our transfer activity this summer has been practically non-existent – as expected. Our one new face in the first team, Luis Jimenez looks to be a bit of a player (well you don’t generally play for Inter if you’re not). The rest (Daprela, Nouble etc) are just kids and shouldn’t be anywhere near the first team squad. We had a pretty poor pre-season although Zavon Hines (20-year-old striker) took his chances well.

Many Rovers fans are angry at Lucas Neill for what they believe is engineering a situation to get as much money as he can for himself regardless of destination. With what has happened this summer, what do you think of him?

Well if he is only in it for the money he’s going the wrong way about it, seeing as how he’s been out of work since the end of June! He was a good servant to West Ham United whilst he was here although his failure to sign a contract anywhere since does appear to be extremly odd.

I was going to ask about the feeling regarding the upcoming Millwall cup game but the size of the thread on your site tells me all I need to know. Briefly, how much does that game mean to the West Ham fans? Can you afford to lose?

‘Wall are our biggest rivals and it’s probably one of football’s best-known rivalries. It’s been going on since the mid 1920s, at least. Can we afford to lose? Well it would be nice to beat them full stop, I think it’s been 16 years or so since we last did!

What are your hopes and expectations for this season?

With the top six being a virtual closed shop these days the best we can realistically hope for is 7th place and European qualification. I expect us to finish in or very close to the top ten – assuming we land a striker to complement Carlton Cole by the end of the transfer window.

What are your opinions of Rovers and how do you think we will fare this season?

Now that you have put the Ince fiasco to bed things appear to be looking up – and Allardyce is no mug. Having said that I think you’re looking between 12th-15th this season. Sorry!

Are there any notable games between the two clubs in recent or past memory that you have fond or vivid memories of?

One or two! Obviously Zamora’s goal at Ewood Park that never was without which we’d have almost certainly been relegated in 06/07. The year before we kicked off the season with a 3-1 win at the Boleyn which set us off nicely for our first season back in the top flight after two years away. Prior to that the FA Cup game that we won on penalties (97/98ish) at EP. Fortunately even I’m too young to remember Boxing Day 1963 … (Rovers won 8-2 at Upton Park)

And finally, a prediction for the game at Ewood this coming Saturday?

We’ve had a good run at your place recently so I think we might sneak it by the odd goal, 2-1 perhaps – although I’d settle for a point. Again, a lot depends on what team we put out.

Thanks again to UpTheJunction for taking the time to come back with these answers.

Tonight Blackburn gave their season the spark it needed with the first competitive win over League One Gillingham, at the KRBS Priestfield Stadium. Not many fans made the trip down for the game, but those who did, witnessed Gamst’s direct goal from the corner, David Dunn scoring the night’s earliest goal and Hoilett getting his first in English football.

David Hoilett scored his first competitive goal for Blackburn

Aside from a knock to Steven Reid and a poor showing from Kalinic (give him time), who just needs a goal and more match fitness, it was an excellent nights work for Rovers, who are in the hat for the Carling Cup Third Round draw, when the team’s involved in European football enter.

Gillingham scored a consolation penalty in the 70th minute, before Pedersen made it three for Rovers, not sure what the penalty was for, interesting decision by the assistant referee for that one, not even sure who committed the foul, Zurab Khizanishvili or Olsson.

Below is a clip of the best of Gamst and what we know he can do, and want to see more of…

Pedersen clips

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For Gamst’s confidence sake, if the goal is credited to him, let’s ignore the fact that the ball took a deflection off Gills captain before it went in.

Michel Salgado signs for Blackburn

33 year old Salgado has signed for Rovers on a two year deal, but is not available for this weekend’s game against Sunderland, as he is still waiting on his international clearance. Salgrado has been capped 53 times for Spain, but comes to Rovers on a free transfer after Real Madrid decided to cancel his contract at the Bernabeu a year early.

Salgado spent 10 years at the Bernabeu, winning two Champions League medals as well as a host of domestic honours. When he does run out for Rovers Salgado will wear the number 27 shirt. He one of Sam Allardyces trademark older signings, after this transfer window he had concentrated on bringing youth to Ewood Park, prior to this signing, the average age of the players transfered in was just 23.

Nikola Kalinic could make debut at Sunderland

New Croatian signing Kalinic could make his first appearance for Blackburn as a substitute at the Stadium of Light, the player who has been given squad number 22, is not yet fully match fit, after joining the club late, after the protracted process of the transfer and work permit.