Two members of the Rao family were at Ewood Park to watch their new team claim all three points, keep a clean sheet and move up to 11th as Morten Gamst Pedersen claimed all the goals. With Brad Friedel in goal and Stephen Warnock in defense, there were a few familiar faces as Blackburn played Aston Villa for the 6th time in 2010! And it only took a few minutes for Brad to come under some early pressure that might have warned him to be on his guard. Gael Givet seemed to be felled by the referee (Mr. Oliver from Northumberland) who might have awarded himself a yellow! But with a minimum of a minute added to the first half it looked likely to be all square at 0-0 as the teams prepared for the break - but when a free kick was awarded it was Morten Gamst Pedersen that reminded Friedel what he can do from long range as he curled the ball into the top left hand corner. So a slightly different team talk than the one Big Sam might have had planned, and the expectation that Villa would make more of an effort as they tried for an equaliser in part two. From the visitors point of view it must have been frustrating - with the Rovers defenders all up to every ball that headed their way. El Hadji Diouf looked certain to get on the score sheet - but it was Pedersen who made it two - thanks to some help from Ryan Nelsen. Villa brought on their new signing - veteran Robert Pires, and Rover gave a first chance to their latest big boy - 'Daryl' Goulon. But it finished with a Rovers clean sheet, three points and the third home win of the season as the new owners watched from the box. Big Sam was delighted with the result - telling RADIO ROVERS: - "It was right both ways today which has been haunting us a little bit. I think that we've been in many good positions in games, but instead of going from 1-0 up to 2-0 and helping the defence to give them something to protect, we've not been doing that. We snuffed out Villa, virtually restricting them to long range shooting and maybe knockdown from the box. Whereas our clear cut chances have been far greater than Aston Villa's and we really should have won by more. El-Hadji Diouf should have done better when one-on-one with Brad, and certainly then at the far post when Dioufy had a free header from four yards out. That should have been the third then.The two goals that we did score, the first, again proving that it wasn't a fluke, was a result of the quality into the box and the pressure that we had put on them. So it has been a great day for us and the new owners have seen us win. This victory has been very important off the back of going to Old Trafford next week."
The win saw Rovers lead frog Villa and overtake Blackpool on goal difference to claim 11th place with 18 points from the first 14 games (21st November 2010)

The Rao family have completed the purchase of Blackburn Rovers for a reported £43 million. News today from Ewood Park confirmed the expected take over with Blackburn Rovers claiming another first - this time the first English Premier League club to have Indian owners ... Venky's bought Rovers' shares for £23m and took on the debt of about £20m. Their chairman Anuradha J Desai is quoted as saying they were "delighted, proud and humbled to be associated with Blackburn Rovers We will absolutely respect the Jack Walker legacy and will be actively supporting the organisation to ensure that Blackburn Rovers remains one of the best-run clubs within the Premier League. We are particularly pleased that the deal has the full support of the Walker Trust, the chairman and the management team, who will of course remain in place with our full support."
It's almost exactly 10 years since Jack Walker passed on - and the "Jack Walker Trust" put the club up for sale two years ago. Rovers have since then been linked with a number of possible investors - but Venky's have been favourites for the past few months.
More details about possible transfer funds and the new owners expectations are expected to emerge over the next few days. (19th November 2010)

Brave fight back - not enough - bad day at the back

Morten and Jason do it again!!! Great night in the North East

It was a 'must win' game - and that's just what Rovers did - but for the first 45 it didn't look likely! Hoping to pick up the pace from last weeks excellent performance against Chelsea - that simply didn't happen. Few chances came the way of either side and Benjani only lasted 30 minutes before Jason Roberts came on for the second successive game to replace him. David Dunn was also called on as Mame Diouf went off at half time. Big Sam must have read the riot act in the interval, and Rovers returned with renewed enthusiasm. When Morten is on form you can always expect the unexpected and his long range free kick in the 57th minute bypassed Al Habsi to lodge in the top corner of the Wigan net. Now Blackburn seemed to have some belief, and it was no surprise when ten minutes later Jason Roberts collected a Brett Emerton cross to make it 2-0. For both players, their first goals of the season! Wigan's most dangerous man was Charles N'Zogbia and it was his well taken free kick from just outside the box that provided the visitors with one back. As the clock ran down David Dunn was handed a gold plated chance as he stood feet away from the Wigan goal - but he put his shot wide. It wasn't wonderful - but the must win was won and Rovers moved up to 15th and well away from the drop zone.
Big Sam told RADIO ROVERS "Whilst our performance overall wasn't very good, you have to look at the quality of our goals today. We've not had as good a day overall as we would have expected, but the outstanding quality of Morten's goal certainly wasn't a fluke, we ask him to put the ball there because it is such a dangerous delivery.The second goal was outstanding as well by Brett Emerton particularly and Jason getting in there to finish at a very good time for us. We certainly weren't firing on all cylinders today,... Overall it is a great result, but not as good a performance, I'm happy I'm saying it that way around. Obviously we want to play well and win but if we don't play quite so well then just make sure we win."
Rovers now have two tough away games over the next 7 days - at Newcastle and Spurs, and Sundays games have already seen them drop from 15th to 16th - it continues to be a hard season. (7th November 2010)