DON'T just look back in anger at the past few months for the reasons why Blackburn Rovers are now facing up to life in the Nationwide League.

Not when there have been so many other major factors, going back to the summer of 1995 when the club fatally failed to build on championship success.

Ever since then - with the exception of last summer when Roy Hodgson had miillions to spend and invested it, for the most part, badly - Rovers have been playing catch-up in the transfer market.

When problems arose they found themselves trying to plug gaps by paying over the odds. Instead, it should have been prevention rather than cure.

All the best clubs buy from a position of strength, Rovers were shelling out in times of weakness and finished up with a highly-expensive (you could say over-priced) collection of players when what they really needed was a team.

Perhaps that is what happens when you throw money at a problem - though not always as other clubs and, notably, Rovers themselves proved pre-championship.

Money to invest, great players, an outstanding spirit . . . so much has disappeared and Brian Kidd faces one of the toughest jobs in football to repair the damage and get this bandwagon rolling again.

Rovers' record since Spurs won 3-0 at Ewood in February 1998 is truly abysmal.

And the extent of their downfall means that fingers cannot only be pointed at managers but at club strategy, or lack of it.

It is not an excuse but the injuries factor has also been significant - arguably the worst casualty list in living memory.

Suspensions, mainly self-inflicted, have cost the club dear too but, as I have already pointed out, the problems go back well before Kidd's appointment.

Rovers have lost, for a variety of reasons, a lot of top-drawer stars. Sometimes that cannot be helped. But the replacements have to match up and they have not done so. Yet another eve-of-season departure saw Colin Hendry bow out. Did Rovers replace him with a defensive leader, a man of real stature at the heart of the back four? The simple answer is no.

Tim Sherwood's exit was undoubtedly costly in hindsight. But, at the time, it was thought Billy McKinlay and Garry Flitcroft would be available.

That might not have solved all the problems but it would have certainly made a difference. Instead both fell by the wayside almost immediately.

It left Kidd, who had effected a revival, without a midfield and struggling because of long-term problems in other areas too. If he had not brought in five new men, you wonder how he might have fielded a team at times.

The season really splits neatly into three sections.

First there was the continuing debacle under Hodgson where the first 15 games produced a paltry nine points and led to his inevitable departure.

Then came the Kidd-inspired fightback, 17 points from 10 games and a lifeline.

Sadly, a squad ravaged by injuries and, ultimately, carrying too many who were not up to it, slipped back into the quicksand.

The home defeat by Everton was a watershed in my opinion.

Not only did it ensure Rovers were left deep in the mire with, arguably, the toughest run-in to come of all the relegation candidates, it also gave Everton the inspiration to escape.

But Rovers will, understandably, also look back on the three games which stood out on the run-in, Southampton and Charlton away and Nottingham Forest at home.

They knew they could not afford to lose at either The Dell or The Valley and they didn't. But draws should have been victories.

To lose at home to Forest was a disaster.

The phrase "rubber-dinghy men", coined by a manager whose patience and tolerance finally snapped, will live in the memory long after the match has been forgotten.

I have little doubt he would have liked to have gone public about his feelings on the inadequacies of the squad he had inherited earlier.

But to do so would have been to commit suicide.

These were the very players he was asking to save the club, and themselves.

While there was a chance, he had to use the best method to get what he could out of them.

But the Forest game, unless you believed in fairies at the bottom of the garden, finally signalled the end.

Impressions of Kidd in his first few months suggest he has the qualities to turn things round. But a long haul is in prospect if the job is to be done properly.

And he will need support from every level of the club.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.