These turkeys are making my Christmas

Iain Mcintosh
I LOVE Venky’s Group. I genuinely think they’re going to be great for English football, though admittedly only in the very short-term, in a particularly abstract manner and at catastrophic cost to Blackburn Rovers.
Ignore their draw against West Ham on Saturday, Venky’s aren’t just for Christmas. They’re for the rest of the season. Though probably not for much longer than that.
I don’t particularly blame them for wanting to sack Sam Allardyce. There are few of us, I’m sure, who would pay £30 to watch his team, let alone £43m to own it. Granted, it might have been better to swing the axe when survival was ensured, rather than 23 games before the end, but there’s a lot to be said for decisiveness.
And yes, on balance, I’d probably have had a successor in mind, rather than giving the job to the coach on the basis that he, “works long hours”. I probably wouldn’t have made myself a hostage to fortune by needlessly pledging to employ an English boss and I doubt I’d have undermined my policy by making the vague statement that a new manager would come in at some point in the next few months.
I love them for their insistence that they want to finish in the top four or five, even though there is rather a large difference between the two. I adore them for wanting to do it while playing pretty football, even though they have only a squad of rock trolls drilled in icy cynicism to call upon.
I could have wept when it was revealed that they had a transfer kitty of around £5m with which to achieve these aims, but these would not be tears of sadness. They would be tears of joy.
Look at the bigger picture. How many of us were even interested in Blackburn this time last week? How many of us would ever consider tuning in for one of their games? Not many, I’d wager. I hope their fans understand that, as a neutral, there is little more compelling than watching the backside gently fall out of an established team. Against all odds, Blackburn are fascinating again. Who else could have done that? I salute you, Venky’s Group. You might not know a lot about football, but my goodness, you make it fun to watch.

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