In the last few weeks it has become clear to me that a lot of Blackburn Rovers fans are scared. Not because they think Rovers are going to do bad but scared because for most of us we are entering uncharted territory. We don't know who's going to be in the starting 11 for the first game of the season, we know very little about our new signings and we could lose some of our best players in a flash. Also what is clear to see is that no-one really has any idea how well we are going to do this season. Some people believe that we have a squad good enough to challenge for the playoffs. Others believe we would be lucky to get into the top half of the table. What Rovers fans really need right now is a goal set for the team that we can all agree can be reached. So let's take a look.
Last season Blackburn had undoubtedly two of the best strikers in the league playing up front in Rudy (22 goals) and Rhodes (21 goals). If you didn't already know this means that Rovers had the best attacking duo in the whole country. Joint top with Watford and look at where they ended up. Going off this and this alone Rovers target should realistically be to gain promotion (if we do keep both Rudy and Rhodes). But why isn't that our target?
Let's look at our goals deference. We finished the league we a respectable +7 goal difference which for us in recent years is pretty good. But not very good when you see that the team who finished above us and 10 points ahead of us Derby ended with +29 goal difference. And for once it's not been our defence that let us down (we conceded as many as Brentford did and they finished 5th). No for once shockingly it was our goals scored that let us down. Out of all the goals we scored 65% of them where down to just Rhodes and Rudy. This is scary considering that both have been linked with moves away from Ewood.
So after looking at that what does our goals need to be? Firstly keep hold of both Rudy and Rhodes. And if we do that then I can't see one reason why we should be finishing outside the top half of the table. But let's go to a scenario where we lose one or (God help us) both. I think we would then have to put our faith in Strickers who are unproven or unknown and that could mean that anything could happen. But I believe in that case I think we would realistically have to be aiming mid-table at most. Keep in mind that i haven't included changes in other teams and losing Cairney and King.
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