Premier League preview: Blackburn v Norwich

Steve Kean: Staying up or going down?

He’s seemingly been in and out all season, but the only directions that Steve Kean is interested in now are up and down.

To stay up, his Blackburn side surely have to pick up three points from this home meeting with mid-table Norwich. Fail to do so, and with trips to Tottenham and Chelsea looming it’ll be a sinking feeling for Kean and Blackburn as they drop down to the Championship.

Such fates are of course decided over the course of a season, but Kean and Blackburn will be looking at April as the cruellest month should they end up relegated. They lost at home to Manchester United having held the top dogs for over 80 minutes, failed to turn up in miserable 3-0 away defeats to West Brom and Swansea and, in between those trips, fell to Andy Carroll’s last minute winner as a 10 man Liverpool took the points from Ewood Park.

After that miserable run of four games, Kean set out his aim to target seven points from the next four in the tunnel at the Liberty Stadium after that Swansea loss. Two days later, Wigan went and won at Arsenal to move six points ahead of Rovers, and so surely the equation changed.

A first campaign outside the top flight for Rovers in 11 years now beckons, and with a huge clash against Wigan during the May Bank Holiday weekend to throw into the mix, the need to win this game against Norwich grows more and more apparent. Luckily for them, their opponents don’t have much left to play for.

Paul Lambert’s side are of course a better outfit than last weekend’s 6-1 home loss to Manchester City indicates, but with mid-table security now confirmed – a feat almost beyond their wildest dreams at the start of the season – then it would be natural for the players’ minds to start drifting.

The effort put in to their win at Tottenham on Easter Monday was arguably to blame for the late collapse which saw the Canaries ship four goals in the last 17 minutes against City, and although they’ll be keen to finish a fantastic season on a high, it is the greater need of Kean’s team which looks like proving pivotal here.

Blackburn are still likely to go down, but they can at least be looking up after a win here.

Elsewhere on a Saturday afternoon which looks to be pivotal in determining who drops down to the Championship this season – and away from QPR hosting Tottenham – there are vital games for Bolton, Wigan and Aston Villa.

The Trotters host Swansea, a side which could come under the same category as Norwich in that they don’t have much left to play for in this campaign, but the Swans look determined to finish on a high. They produced an improved display in that Blackburn win and could do the same here. A draw looks on the cards as nerves get the better of Bolton.

There are no nerves at Wigan right now, and they’ll take a remarkably relaxed attitude into an away game at Fulham that they’ll be more than confident of taking a point out of, whilst Aston Villa can move away from the bottom three with a much-needed home win over Sunderland.

Nearer the top of the table, Newcastle can leap into the top four for a couple of hours at least as they host Stoke on Tyneside, while FA Cup final places will be in the minds of the Liverpool players as they line up against West Brom at Anfield on Sunday afternoon.

In a fixture given added spice with Roy Hodgson’s first return to the Reds since his disastrous spell in charge last season, Liverpool should do enough to pick up only a sixth Anfield league win of this campaign, prolonging Wembley smiles in the process.

Mark Jones – follow me on twitter

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