This weekend sees us visit Blackburn for the second part of our double header with league points at stake this time. Following another disappointment last weekend we find ourselves a point, and a place from bottom of the Premiership, which certainly wasn't part of the plan and we need to quickly return to winning ways to get us out of this mess.

If there is a plus side, it is the fact that the league is very tight at the moment so we can start climbing again with the right result, but anything less than a win could well leave us bottom of the pile by the time the Hammers visit a week on Sunday. We have been frequent visitors to our North West neighbours and our record at Ewood Park reads:

Pld 60 W 16 D 16 L 28 F 76 A 110

Goals and wins have been thin on the ground here in recent seasons, with just the one victory in the last thirty years when we won on Boxing Day 01, and they are the only goals we have scored in our last five visits. The previous victory here came way back in September 75, when a Towers goal gave us a 1-0 win on the way to the Division Two title that season. After an immediate relegation the following season in the infamous Jimmy Hill cheating incident, we drew 1-1 in December 77 with Gilbert on the score sheet, and shared the points in a 1-1 draw again the following season with Lord Rowell on target. It was a further seven seasons before our paths crossed again on the opening day of the 85-86 season, fresh with optimism under the leadership of Mackemenemy, and it was a sign of things to come when his first game ended in a 0-2 defeat. Having managed to avoid relegation to Division Three by a mere four points thanks to winning three of our four final fixtures, we'd hoped for better the next season but our trip to Blackburn in September 86 saw us hammered 1-6 and I can still remember the day painfully, Swindlehurst netting our consolation. We all know how that season finished, but we bounced back and gained a 2-2 draw on our next visit in February 89, Gabbiadini on target twice for the lads.

Honours were even once again when MacPhail scored in a 1-1 draw in September 89, and a third consecutive draw in this fixture was registered when we drew 2-2 in our final away game of the 91-92 season, with Armstrong and Davenport scoring as we prepared for the FA Cup final ten days later. Promotion to the Premiership for the 96-97 season saw us make our first visit in five years but we slipped to a 0-1 defeat as we slid down the table toward relegation, and we had to wait until December 01 before that fine 3-0 win gave us a welcome Christmas present thanks to a couple of goals from Quinny and another from Kilbane. Unfortunately we only managed a further three wins that season and only avoided relegation on the final day of the season.

We opened the following season with a 0-0 draw in August 02, and again failed to find the net when losing our rearranged fixture in February 06, following the late postponement of the original fixture, 0-2 with Bellamy netting both of Blackburn's goals. Last season saw us travel for another midweek fixture, our first of this year, and we suffered a bitterly disappointing 0-1 defeat on a cold January night when McCarthy scored a highly dubious penalty five minutes after Whitehead had missed from the spot with a tame effort. Yorke was sent off later in the game to round off a miserable evening. Thankfully this year we travel to Ewood Park for a Saturday afternoon match, and hopefully this will bring around the change in luck we are due here.

Blackburn are favourites to take the points, at Evens, with the draw priced at 9/4 and a Sunderland victory 3/1 (all with Skybet). So far this season I've staked £12 and had £9 in returns from my selected bets so hoping to get into profit soon. I'm tempted by the odds of 16/1 about a 2-2 draw, but hoping we can get all three points so let's have this weeks £1 on a 2-1 Sunderland win, available at odds of 14/1 with Skybet.

Keep The Faith
FTM
Mike McNally