Rovers dismiss third boss of the season.
Championship relegation battlers Blackburn Rovers have sacked boss Michael Appleton after just 15 games in charge at Ewood Park.
The club are now on the look out for their fourth manager of the season.
Source: BBC
It is hard to know where to start.
Blackburn, a great club, a founder member of the Premier League – and one of only five teams to have won the the title in the Premier League era – are, to put in mildly, in disarray.
Steve Kean’s reign at Ewood Park was an unqualified disaster, during which fans turned against manager in a manner never seen before in English top flight football. As unpleasant a person as Kean appeared to be, it was hard to watch.
That said, the Scot left Blackburn third in the Championship when he sacked in September, with a very realistic chance of making an immediate return to the top flight.
Rovers now sit 18th in the Championship, four points from safety with nine games left to play and given the lack of stability and cohesion at Ewood Park with an even more realistic chance of suffering the ignominy of back-to-back relegations.
Given the manner in which Appleton arrived at Blackburn – leaving Lancashire rivals Blackpool after less than two months in charge at Bloomfield Road – it’s perhaps difficult to feel sympathy for the 37-year-old, who must have known what he was letting himself in for, when he agreed to work with Rovers’ notorious owners, the Venky family of India.
Appleton is young enough to bounce back, as is his predecessor and Kean’s successor, Henning Berg, and so it is the Rovers fans who deserve our sympathy.
They are watching the club built up by great men like Jack Walker crumble to ruin under the stewardship of chicken farmers, who understand nothing about the game and nothing about the illustrious history, traditions and culture of a once fine instiution.
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