Team News

Blues will have new signing Matt Derbyshire available although he would probably only have the match fitness for a place on the bench. I would expect the team to be similar to the one that finished against Sunderland with Zigic coming in for O’Connor and McFadden for Fahey. Kevin Phillips will be out for a few more weeks.

Blackburn will most likely be without ex-Blue David Dunn who sustained a groin injury against Everton. This will disappoint those who like to boo him although personally don’t see why they feel the need to do that.

Last Meeting

The last meeting took place at the end of March and finished 2-1 to Blackburn. James McFadden scored for Blues. The last meeting at St Andrews also finished 2-1 with Cameron Jerome netting a brace. In fact most of the recent games between the two sides have finished 2-1 to the home side.

Recent Form

Only goal difference separated the sides last season and started this one with decent results. It’s too early to be talking about form though and how that will impact on this game.

Outlook

It’s Blackburn at home. We always beat Blackburn at home and it’s nearly always 2-1. So that’s an easy preview then.

I can’t leave it like that for two reasons. Firstly in early season games almost anything can happen and secondly Kev wouldn’t be very pleased with my lack of effort. I think that this is an important game as we need to get three points in the bank with games away at Bolton and home to Liverpool coming up. It’ll be nice to be able to keep away from the relegation zone for the whole season. We also have to keep our unbeaten home record intact, it’s eleven months since we lost to Bolton. Of course we could win tomorrow but lose that to Rochdale in the Carling Cup in the week. Wouldn’t that be annoying.

As for Blackburn I have to say that they are not one of my favourite teams. I think my dislike for them stems from a freezing cold Saturday in December 2003 where they beat us 4-0 and Christophe Dugarry got sent off for elbowing someone during a corner (which was pretty much his last act in a Blues shirt). I also remember their fans being incredibly annoying although that might have been because we were losing 4-0 at home. Barry Ferguson scored the first goal that day so balancing your account tomorrow would be nice Bazza. Then of course there was the whole Robbie Savage affair. Of course the main reason I like them to lose is because they are one of our main competitors for a top ten place this season.

As for tomorrow I hope we play a lot better than we did last week. While I enjoyed watching us coming back from two goals down last week for the first sixty minutes of the game we were pretty poor. Starting without O’Connor and Fahey would help as I fail to see what they bring to team. Yes they put in a shift but Zigic and McFadden offer more in an attacking sense. I hope Derbyshire comes on as well as it’s always nice to see new signings. I’m mostly interested though in seeing how Seb Larsson plays and whether last weeks performance was really the sign of a return to form after a sub-standard two years. First home game of the season is always an event so let’s hope it’s a good one.

My prediction 2-1 (Why break with tradition)

C’mon you Blue Boys!