Bloody hell... at half time I was thinking about how I’d have to write a spirited defence of Keane. About how his style has major weaknesses but his positives outweigh them by far and that we’d have to live with the odd losing streak as a lower mid-table Premier League side. And that anyone who’d witnessed our previous two losses and labelled us as a club in disarray simply didn’t know what they were talking about.

Today’s win was a victory for a manager with balls. Or rather a loss for a man without them. Ince might have won on Wednesday but he got lucky, fielding a crap side in the hope that his real players would have that little extra in the tank today and fluking his way into the league cup quarter finals in the process. Sorry mate but if you saw Keiron haring about like Usain Bolt with 92 minutes on the clock you’d know you got it wrong. Your cloggers were nowhere.

Blackburn did boss the first half but only when they won corners. Fulop may get jip for his handling of crosses but the mayhem they were causing was totally down to their tactics, his players standing in a cluster then darting in different directions when Pedersen delivered. Indeed that’s how they scored, Samba’s header looping over our Hungarian just as I was ducking into the stand to go for a wazz and queue for the pint I owed my brother.

The second half was fucking brilliant though. Malbranque jinked about like a man with a pot of glue poured over his right boot, Jones and Cisse shot about in pincer movements in front of him and their bruisers didn’t have a clue what to do. As Jones notched from a yard in front of our 6,000 the relief was massive, bodies hurtling all over the place and the SKY camera at the back of the stand being rocked off its hinges by a man who’s old enough to know better. No doubt Keane tried to act all Mr Cool about it but his heart must have been thudding against his ribcage as it went in.

It all became a bit of a blur from there. Kenwyne hit the bar at some point, Richardson seemed to take a million corners in front of his adoring public and, obviously, Djibril scored the winner. Steed flick on, bang, goal. At this point the Darwen End was literally jumping as everyone rocked along to his tune, coats swinging around heads - the lot. Gerrin there! Often nowadays the atmosphere in the ground doesn’t match that in the pub with all of the noise makers scattered all over the shop but as radge as The Fernhurst was, today’s match topped it. Ross Wallace and Anton Ferdinand’s mates, all of whom were sat near us, must have been lapping it up.

This probably goes against the flow but I’d have rather won Wednesday’s match than this one. The torture we handed Blackburn today shows that we should stay up with plenty to spare and that if we ride out this sticky spell a climb of the league ladder will surely happen. My biggest concern now is that Hardy has just announced that he needs us to pull over into Tebay Services to have a piss. It’s the breaking of a basic rule that disciplinarians like Keane would not tolerate. We want to get straight back and celebrate three points and if he ends up with a map of Africa all over his trousers he should have to live with it.

Get in.

Final Score: 2-1

Man of the Match: Danny Collins

Tom Bright

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