The case for a defence as Wanderers run Rovers ragged

TONY Parkes can expect a knock on his office door this week, and the odds are that it could well be Lee Carsley asking for a pay rise.

For Blackburn Rovers' currently redundant midfield enforcer has found his value soaring - through not even playing!

Eight goals conceded in the last two League games and some diabolical defending underline just how much Carsley's 'muscle' in front of a fragile back four has so obviously been missed.

The injured hard man had proved himself a very effective minder. He was the guard dog who warned off unwelcome intruders.

But, having said that, it would be absurd and too easy an excuse to blame the absence of one man for the entire team's recent disintegration at the back.

Not even Julius Francis displayed the defensive shortcomings shown by Rovers, both individually and collectively, in the two games at Barnsley and Bolton.

They have defended like novices and paid a full price.

Just a couple of months ago, Wanderers looked like cannon fodder as they were overwhelmed at Ewood. On Saturday, the opposite was the case as Bolton were clearly up for it and in the mood while Rovers seemed to accept their fate far too easily for comfort.

And, as the race for perhaps just one play-off place hots up, Rovers will have to contemplate the unpalatable prospect of missing out unless they can come to terms with the difference between home and away.

For the uninitiated, that isn't an Aussie soap - it's the frightening gulf between the team's general self-assurance on home territory and distinct edginess away from Ewood. Parkes has not been the only man to warn that Rovers' away record needed to be improved if the play-offs are to be achieved.

Unfortunately, few of the players seemed to be listening.

Just as Alan Shearer's finishing power was the difference between the sides in last Monday's FA Cup tie, it was glaringly easy to spot where Bolton were going right on Saturday and Rovers were getting most things wrong.

The home team looked hungrier from the start and gave Rovers lessons in both movement and marking.

While Ashley Ward - a fitness gamble which failed it has to be said - and Nathan Blake both found themselves tightly marked, Rovers' defenders seemed to prefer to give their opponents a couple of yards start.

In the case of talents such as Eidur Gudjohnsen and Michael Johansen, that proved fatal.

It wasn't just the defenders. Bolton's free-running midfielders were allowed to roam at will, resulting in any number of threatening one-twos on the edge of the box.

Defending has to be done as a team but, if it was poor at the back, there wasn't much more to say about Rovers as an attacking force either.

Ironically, they scored a glorious goal after an outstanding example of passing and movement. But that was a rare example.

They were so static they often resembled a Subbuteo team - still in the box. Bolton were clearly more in the mood from the off but Rovers had a couple of encouraging moments and, on a poor pitch, grabbed an early lead.

A flowing move started with Jason McAteer to acting skipper Per Frandsen before the ball was transferred to Damien Duff. His superb reverse pass set Callum Davidson free, the cross was perfect, the marking abysmal and Blake headed home against his old club.

Unfortunately, Rovers let slip an equaliser just two minutes later when Johansen's deep cross from the right was headed back across goal by Bob Taylor and Gudni Bergsson - almost on the line - nodded in.

Rovers were struggling to pick up the runners from midfield, giving the strikers too much room and Bolton switched play successfully from flank to flank to dominate.

The pressure culminated in Wanderers' second before half-time.

Great skills by Icelander Gudjohnsen, given too much room, saw him shrug off the presence of Frandsen, Darren Peacock and Christian Dailly. A slide-rule pass freed Johansen on the right and he twisted inside past one man and left another on his backside before curling a shot inside the far post.

Rovers did improve for 20 minutes at the start of tthe second half and Ward would surely have met Duff's cross to equalise if he had been sharper. Instead, it was Duff who later lost the ball for Bolton to break away and score the crucial third.

Claus Jensen robbed him in Bolton's half, released right-winger Johansen and he fed Gudjohnsen - with a suspicion of offside - to blast home a spectacular shot against a stretched defence.

Three of the four goals were magnificent for the team which scored them but defensive disasters from the opposite point of view.

Rovers switched things round - the fans plainly not agreeing with the removal of Duff - but to no avail.

The damage had already been done and it summed it up in stoppage time when left back Robbie Elliott was able to charge through acres of space, unchallenged, to get in a shot that Alan Kelly saved well.

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