Should Blackburn's Steve Kean be manager of the year? | Paul Wilson

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<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.4/84217?ns=guardian&pageName=Should+Blackburn%27s+Steve+Kean+be+manager+of+the+year%3F+%7C+Paul+Wilson%3AArticle%3A1720680&ch=Football&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Steve+Kean+%28football%29%2CBlackburn+Rovers+%28Football+club%29%2CFootball%2CSport&c5=Unclassified%2CPremier+League&c6=Paul+Wilson&c7=12-Mar-21&c8=1720680&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Football&c13=&c25=Sport+blog&c30=content&c42=Sport&h2=GU%2FSport%2FFootball%2FSteve+Kean" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Terrace unrest has been the backdrop to Kean's hellish season, yet his depleted side are starting to look safe in the top flight</p><p>Blackburn Rovers are starting to look safe after the season from hell and the worst fears of almost all their supporters, so how about Steve Kean for manager of the year?</p><p>No? Has not David Moyes achieved more on a similarly straitened budget, Fergie pushed his nose back in front again despite all the resources at Manchester City's disposal or Brendan Rodgers made the whole country (two countries actually) sit up and take notice by not only winning the breath of fresh air award for great football but also marching Swansea into the top eight?</p><p>Arguably all those feats put Kean's season in the shade, and one could also cite other managerial successes at Newcastle, Sunderland, Liverpool and Norwich that have left supporters happier with their lot than the ones in east Lancashire. Yet terrace unrest has been the backdrop to Kean's season; no other manager – with the possible exception of Alex McLeish – has had the fans baying for his removal from day one. Within Blackburn he was hated, outside the club he was dismissed as the naive stooge of clueless owners and given little prospect of avoiding relegation or the sack, whichever came first.</p><p></p><p>Yet Kean is still around, and now talking as if he might be here next season. In the Premier League. And when he talks of keeping a winning mentality and a professional outlook at the club he is absolutely right. There have been a couple of inexcusably poor performances from Blackburn this season – they are operating at the wrong end of the table, after all. But at no time have the goals dried up, at no time have the players ever looked uninterested, rebellious or disrespectful of their manager, and in spite of all the nonsense taking place off the pitch confidence has remained consistently high, as clubs such as Manchester United and Liverpool found to their cost.</p><p></p><p>There ought to be some sort of recognition for such triumph in the face of adversity. It could be argued that Kean has got more out of his players this season than André Villas-Boas managed at Chelsea, and certainly one imagines Mark Hughes, Roberto Martínez and Terry Connor would dearly love some of the Blackburn spirit to rub off on their own sides. Rovers are still on only 28 points and some distance from mathematical safety, yet the three clubs at the bottom of the table already look goners, surely incapable of bridging the gap should Blackburn post another win or two and move towards 35 or so points.</p><p></p><p>If the season pans out that way, then a nailed-on bottom three will ultimately detract from Kean's achievement. It will be suggested that his side would have been relegated but for the sheer luck of three worse ones turning up together to keep Blackburn afloat. That might be fair comment, though when Blackburn were in the bottom three, or even at the foot of the table, they never froze, like QPR, or lost hope, like Wolves. They carried on playing their football and managed to climb out, a feat even more remarkable given the player drain Kean has had to put up with this season.</p><p>Most clubs threatened by relegation try to bring in bodies and strengthen their squads for the fight. Kean and Blackburn have lost one player after another – including some very good ones – and simply carried on as normal. Losing Chris Samba last month was supposed to be the final straw – the centre-half and captain had been keeping Blackburn going at both ends of the field and without his leadership it was widely imagined Rovers would lose their way – but Kean just gave the captaincy to Paul Robinson and promoted Grant Hanley to fill the defensive gap, leaving Samba to learn the hard way about the cultural differences between England and his new home in Russia.</p><p></p><p>It may not be widely appreciated outside Blackburn, but since Rovers survived in the final week of last season, Kean has lost almost an entire first team, and brought in only a handful of replacements such as Scott Dann and Marcus Olsson. Players to have left Blackburn within the last year include Samba, Phil Jones, Brett Emerton, Ryan Nelsen, Jason Roberts and Keith Andrews. Rovers got big money for Samba and Jones, but all the others were virtually pushed out of the door for nothing in a bid to cut the wage bill. Players still on the Rovers books but no longer available for selection include Michael Salgado, Vince Grella and possibly Rubén Rochina.</p><p>Salgado has been told he will not play another game for the club because to do so would entitle him to another season under the terms of his contract. He is still in England but looking for another club. Grella and Rochina are thought to be in a similar situation. The Australian has been told he will be transferred, while Rochina has disappeared from view, no longer even making the bench. The club's explanation is that he is something of a luxury player, unsuited to a relegation dogfight, yet one wonders in that case why Rovers bought him.</p><p>Did they imagine they would be in the top half by now? Rochina is a useful player, quite popular with the fans, as is the similarly under-used Simon Vukcevic. The fans can just about understand the reluctance to keep Salgado – as new owners it is Venky's prerogative to take a dim view of over-generous promises made by the previous regime to 36-year-old veterans – but when Kean raised the possibility of bringing in the out-of-contract Bolo Zenden to give him more options in midfield alarm bells began to ring. Kean already has some handy options in midfield that either he or the owners are choosing not to play.</p><p></p><p>So to suggest that Kean is now a hero in his patch of east Lancashire would be stretching the truth. He would probably not win a manager of the year award were only Rovers supporters entitled to vote, and neither would Venky's win any prizes for enlightened ownership, transparency or communication skills. But the point is that the ending to this weird saga that everyone foresaw may not happen. Rovers could stay up, Kean could keep his job, and either Steve Morgan at Wolves or Tony Fernandes at QPR could come up on the rails and pip Venky's to the unwanted title of most preposterous owner of the season.</p><p>The accusation whispered against Venky's since its takeover has been that it understood so little about football it did not even know about relegation, much less how to avoid it. But apparently it knows better than a few others about the importance of not sacking a manager who has the support of his players, or not undermining his authority with impromptu appearances in the dressing room.</p><p></p><p>Blackburn is still the strangest of Premier League stories, but it appears it will have at least one more chapter. What will happen over the summer should Rovers stay up is anyone's guess. If the predicted offers come in for Junior Hoilett and Steven Nzonzi it is hard to see them being turned down. There may be another exodus of talent. But Rovers have been there before and survived.</p><p>They will soon have done almost everything and survived, but when they introduce a homegrown player such as Hanley, Adam Henley or Jason Lowe, he is invariably quite impressive. "What we want," Kean said after the victory over Sunderland in midweek, "is to get to the required number of points as quickly as possible so we can all relax and enjoy summer." Who could possibly begrudge them that?</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/steve-kean">Steve Kean</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blackburn">Blackburn Rovers</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/paulwilson">Paul Wilson</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> &copy; 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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