BRFC Articles

Blake taking the rap

How have you settled in at Blackburn?

"To be honest, this has been my strangest season. Not only have I had to come to terms with leaving Bolton for Blackburn, but the manager who brought me to the club, Roy Hodgson, has been replaced and I've suffered a couple of niggling injuries as well. Mentally it's very hard to get up for the games when all this is happening outside of the game."

You're in the middle of the relegation battle right now.

"When I signed for Blackburn I never expected to be in this position. A couple of months ago we were doing OK, but now Charlton have come almost out of nowhere and they've put teams like us under pressure. I said at the beginning of the season Charlton would stay up. I don't think we'll go down but we're going to need a bit of luck in the run-in."

You got some good early results under Brian Kidd. What's gone wrong recently?

"He came in and we got a good run of results. Everyone knows we're not playing like Man United out there - it's not pretty stuff but we're fighting for our lives. And we got some wins as a result. It's fallen away lately, so we need to pick up points in every game we play. We're still in a position where we can't rely on anyone's results but our own - and we want to keep it that way. As soon as you rely on another team winning you're in a very difficult situation."

But you should stay up with the quality you've got?

"We've got some brilliant players but that doesn't mean we can't go down. I've been in relegation fights so many times before and it affects different players in different ways. Some people can handle it, some can't, and some don't want to - you never know until you get into that situation. There's no doubt we're fighting for our lives but we've got a decent team and we just have to keep going forward."

Injuries haven't helped, have they?

"You're right. We talk about the quality in the team but we've got so many injured at the moment. If this club had had a full-strength squad from the start of the season I doubt if I would even be here -  I wouldn't have been needed. We won't see Billy McKinlay and Garry Flitcroft for the rest of the season and Chris Sutton has been in and out of the team. And now Matt Jansen's out for the season. No team can survive losing so many class players."

It's been a tough start to management for Brian Kidd.

"I feel sorry for the boss because he's got so many things he would like to do, but his hands are tied. He's got the money to go out and buy players, but who does he buy? We've already got the squad but most of them are out injured. He's not going to panic buy - he knows what he's doing."