Absolutely brilliant win. Blackburn are definitely one of the best sides we've faced this season. They really put us through our paces and made us work so hard to get anything out of that game. I don't doubt their fans are absolutely gutted that they haven't been able to get some sort of result, as in all honesty they probably deserved it, but full credit to us for digging in and showing so much resolve again to get another 3 points.
Going forward I thought we were excellent. Should probably have been 2-0 up by half-time as I'm not sure how we didn't double our lead during that move where Pukki hit the bar, but he took his first goal superbly well. I was getting so frustrated though at the amount of times we were getting into ideal shooting positions and then opting to take another touch or make a pass rather than just hit it. Martin and Vrancic in particular were guilty of it a few times, and considering the quality they have you'd think they would've at least been able to test the 'keeper if they had just taken on the shot. Credit to McGovern as well who made a spectacular save at 0-0. Didn't think he had that in his locker to be honest.
While I think Blackburn were a threat in the first half it felt as if we always had them at arm's length a little bit, but they came flying out the blocks for the 2nd half and we were far too slow in responding. They had literally pinned us in our defensive 3rd and no matter what we did we just could not get out, and while McGovern should be praised for the save he made when it was goalless, he has to take some of the blame for his dreadful kick out (something it has to be said he did numerous times throughout the game) where he gave Blackburn the ball half-way inside our half, and one pass later Elliott was through on goal. What a player Harvey Elliott is by the way, if we do go up I'd love us to look at taking him on loan from Liverpool next season. But yeah, I really feared the worst for us when we conceded, because it had just been one-way traffic for the entirety of the 2nd half, but it always felt like if we could get our foot on the ball and bypass Blackburn's midfield we could cause them problems, and when we actually, finally did that for the first time in the 2nd half, we scored a goal from it (albeit an 'unorthodox' one
). From then on the way we saw the game out was really impressive, and the triple substitution Farke made certainly helped that. The fact that Adam Armstrong, the league's top scorer and arguably most dangerous player, didn't have a shot until the 88th minute, and even that was a tame effort from a wide angle that went straight at McGovern, says it all about how well we handled the side that have had the best attack in the division so far. If anything the winning margin should've been wider, as I'm not sure how Stiepermann didn't do better with that opportunity right at the end after brilliant work from Hugill.
Man of the match is obviously Pukki. Scored two goals, the first of which was brilliantly taken, and caused Blackburn real headaches particularly in the first half. Emi had a quieter game but was still really effective when he did get on the ball. A special word for Sorenson who was constantly having to defend 1 on 1 against Elliott but I thought in general he did really well against him. There wasn't a single bad performance out there though. That is, except for the referee, who was fucking scandalously bad. Fortunately he didn't have any big decisions to make but I'm sure if he had he'd have given them Blackburn's way. EVERY SINGLE TIME a Blackburn player went down near one of ours he'd blow his whistle, and yet when our players were fouled in identical circumstances he'd tell them to get up! There were a few moments where Blackburn players actually fouled ours, and yet he somehow managed to penalise us for it, like when Pukki got elbowed in the face and the free-kick was given against him. It was genuinely unbelievable I was absolutely baffled by some of the decisions he was making in the 2nd half. Thankfully it didn't cost us.
Another tough game coming up next with Reading away, who will have fans in their ground unlike Blackburn today. If we can take at least a point I'll consider this a very successful week, but hopefully we can go one better.