A return to where the heart isn’t for Steve Kean

Blackburn’s attempt to bounce back to the Premier League will return to Ewood Park on Wednesday night, the place that provided Steve Kean with some of the ugliest scenes he has had to endure during a horrific tenure as Rovers’ boss. Kean hasn’t been back at the ground since a 1-0 defeat to Wigan hammered the final nail in Blackburn’s top tier coffin against a backdrop of vitriolic abuse that poured from the stands and threatened to overspill at the final whistle.

The inexperienced manager, rather admirably, stood up to the waves of fans who looked to vent their frustration over a year of boardroom ineptitude and mystery on the helpless man in the dugout, and still, 3 months later, Kean remains in the hot seat, still refusing to turn his back on the job he has shown no signs of justifying he should be in.

The summer has refused to buckle to the endless stream of discontent that emanates from Ewood Park on a regular basis; Rovers’ Global Advisor Shebby Singh has broken off from Venky’s universal loyalty to Kean in order to say that the 44 year old should be sacked if he loses three games at the start of the season. Singh has since relented after public criticism from Kean and his employers, but the first signs of the hierarchy’s disillusionment with the manager were clearly there, however illogical, there seems to be no sense to the onlooker with the approach to letting a coach relegate a side only to sack him if results aren’t flowing just three games later.

The manager, the owners and even Shebby Singh have seen eye to eye in trying to promote a return to the act that everybody associated with Blackburn Rovers are indeed in perfect harmony as they embark on a new season in the Championship, their first in the second tier for eleven years. Optimism may have even been raised by an active summer in the transfer market, signing the experience of Danny Murphy, Dickson Etuhu and Nuno Gomes to add seasoned quality to a squad that has undergone radical change since the Kean/ Venky’s axis began, another ten players have departed during this summer.

Leon Best and Colin Kazim-Richards have also been acquired to add more firepower to a front-line that relied so heavily on the now gone Yakubu last season. Richards, on loan from Galatasaray, has a point to prove in England following his exile to his native Turkey, whilst Best represents a good piece of business should he replicate the decent form he showed when filling in for Newcastle’s delightful strike-force of Demba Ba and Papiss Cisse during the African Cup of Nations last January before injury hit. Such a raft of sensible signings have been in contrast to the hesitancy showed in January when, with relegation looming clearly on the horizon, Venky’s granted Kean just £2 million to sign the obscure talents of Bradley Orr and Anthony Modeste.

An opening day 1-1 draw with Ipswich, Kazim-Richards with the opening goal only to see an own goal from Jason Lowe deny Rovers all three points, would have been met with frustration by Kean and the Rovers fans who wanted to get off the mark with a win, but a further degree of patience will have to be preached at a side that should have grown tired with that commodity last season. Venky’s refused to listen to supporter’s demands however and remained loyal to Kean, now they are about to discover, against Steve Bruce’s Hull City who are also facing a big year in their quest to return to the Premier League, whether the Ewood Park faithful are quite so willing to forgive, forget, and look to the future that has been shaped by the boardroom they have found it so hard to trust.