WHERE do we go from here? That is the question being posed by Ewood fans as the Rovers' season seems to be slipping inexorably into frustrating limbo.

With only nine more matches to go in the Premiership, the slim hopes of Euro qualification are fading fast in the wake of a home defeat at the hands of high flying Liverpool and a disappointing draw at Maine Road.

Rovers have 42 points from 29 matches, locked in a 'comfortable' mid-table position and seven points behind fourth placed Aston Villa.

But only the super optimists among the Ewood faithful are anticipating anything other than disappointment from this season, which has become a very much 'after the Lord Mayor's Show.'

Statisticians will point to the abysmal away record, which has yielded only one victory, as the principal reason for the decline. But I feel it goes much deeper than that.

Kenny Dalglish's elevation to the peerage has made him virtually the invisible man and one can only guess at how much influence, if any, he still exercises on team management. None, I suspect.

Ray Harford, while a thoroughly decent man and professional to his shoe caps, carries nowhere near the charisma or respect among the seasoned and hugely paid professionals he controls.

That's hardly his fault. King Kennys don't fall off the assembly line every week - or year for that matter.

Post-Dalglish Liverpool went into almost terminal decline under Graeme Souness and only this season have regained their devastating confidence and rhythm.

And it's no coincidence that under Alex Ferguson, Man United have continued to prosper, despite the pre-season shedding of major stars like Kanchelskis, Hughes and Ince which brought howls of protests from their fans and ill-informed criticism from the media.

Dalglish and Ferguson are giants; Harford is not. He's no pygmy, either, mind you, and I am not seeking to place the blame entirely on his shoulders. But he has said before that the buck stops firmly at his door.

The rumours which have circulated all season about dressing room feuds may have been blown out of proportion but the very public brawl between David Batty and Graham le Saux wrecked any pretensions that all was sweetness and light behind closed doors.

We may yet read all about it in one of the sewer tabloids, which seem to get the bulk of their information - and readership it has to be said - from the nether regions.

And what about five million man Chris Sutton? Even before his injury, which has kept him out of the reckoning for three months, Sutton had become a caricature of the deadly marksman he once was.

Good players don't become poor players overnight. But when the motivation goes, and disillusionment sets in, poor results inevitably follow.

The label of 'mercenary' can be attached to almost all pro footballers in these crazy days of astronomical transfer fees and salaries. Loyalty to clubs marches side by side with pay days, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But the adoring fans of Blackburn Rovers, the most loyal being the club's mega-rich benefactor Jack Walker, must be asking themselves, where do we go from here. And that's where we came in.

STEVE TINNISWOOD

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