If there were any spies from The Bernabeu or the San Siro at Ewood last Saturday, I suspect Big Sam’s already extremely slim chances of being invited to become Madrid’s or Milan’s next manager have just been totally extinguished.

Rovers turned in the worst performance of the season so far in a game which certainly did nothing to assuage Sam’s knockers.

The accepted wisdom is that while his record in all the circumstances at Blackburn is creditable, it does come at the expense of boring, long ball, percentage football.

I’d just had a conversation with one of that school of thought in the local before the game. Knowing that he used to be a season ticket holder, I asked him why he wasn’t going to the game. He told me that he didn’t like the style of football on offer.

He was someone who would prefer to see the Rovers play “good” football even if it meant they lost more games. I sympathise with that view but cannot fully agree with it.

Most fans like to see a winning team and if we’d sneaked an undeserved winner in the last minute, all that talk of it being a dire game would have been at the very least considerably watered down.

When Sam’s style of football doesn’t get results however it doesn’t take long for the critics to jump in with both feet.

So what went wrong on Saturday? What was worrying was the lack of creativity and the amount of possession we gave away in midfield.

Quite why Vince Grella is preferred to Stephen N’Zonzi, last year’s player of the season is beyond me.