Four goals and three points against a side competing in the Champions League for one peering at the prospect of relegation would ordinarily be cause to celebrate an upset. When that Champions League team is Arsenal, however, it merely starts another round of post-mortems and turns up the volume on the questioning of Arsène Wenger.

In this case though, it perhaps suits Blackburn that the focus of the game is only the deficiencies of an Arsenal team that now sit 17th in the table, rather than on those of the home side. Had Arsenal managed to take their chances, instead of capitulating in their now familiar fashion, manager Steve Kean may have faced a rather more challenging post match press conference.

After the match Kean spoke of a plan to force Arsenal’s play wide, not allowing the typical Arsenal threaded through balls, instead making them cross the ball. He employed two holding midfielders, Steven N’Zonzi alongside first Jason Lowe and then Radosav Petrović in an attempt to guide Arsenal’s play down the flanks.

The problems with this were twofold. Firstly, Arsenal had a decent measure of success from wide, particularly down the right flank. Faced with the prospect of Gervinho and Bacary Sagna combining, the hosts’ left back, Gaël Givet would have been as good just walking off the pitch, for all the use he was defensively.

More important, however, was the fact that both of Arsenal’s first half goals came from exactly what Kean had tried to stop, passes threaded into the penalty area. On both occasions N’Zonzi was the guilty party, first standing off Alex Song and then allowing Aaron Ramsey to run in behind him. For all the talk of tactical success, come half time they were staring down quite a sizable barrel.

Credit where credit’s due, Yakubu’s first goal was a very well taken finish, making the most of Arsenal’s chaotic defensive line and his second took advantage of their biggest vulnerability, set pieces. That they were able to make a comeback at all, however, was down to the continued shambles that is Arsenal’s defence. Can a side really take credit for Song and Laurent Koscielny turning balls into their own net under minimal pressure? The chances themselves were the product of yet more woeful defending – Andrei Arshavin’s lazy challenge on Lowe and Johan Djourou’s crazy slide at Martin Olsson – as opposed to wonderful attacking play, and there is an argument to be made that Blackburn secured the luckiest 4-3 victory in history.

What makes it more difficult to watch as a neutral, and no doubt was a contributing factor to the protest march that took place before the Arsenal game, is that Rovers have some talented players. They may not look like it at times, perhaps most of the time this season as they struggled to a draw against Fulham and stumbled to defeats against Everton, Aston Villa and Wolves, but players such as Olsson, Hoilett, Formica, Rochina and Vukčević have real quality. Kean speaks about wanting to play a better brand of football than the club experienced under Sam Allardyce, and to an extent he has achieved that, but surely the players at his disposal are better than the four points from 15 that they have so far collected.

It is in central defence where they are strongest though. The full back situation will continue to be an issue – neither Míchel Salgado nor Givët are of Premier League quality any more – but in Christopher Samba, Scott Dann and Ryan Nelsen they have players of considerable talent. Both Samba and Dann spent the summer being linked with clubs arguably more glamorous than Blackburn, but the transfer window closed with Samba still at Ewood Park and Dann moving from Birmingham to join him. There is the makings of an excellent partnership there, and with competition from Nelsen, once he has recovered from his knee injury, they could certainly be one of the better units in the league.

One can’t escape the feeling though, that under Kean they will never realise that potential. Under Kean Blackburn have won just five of the 26 league games they have played; that win percentage of a meagre 19.23% is worse than the record of the team finishing 18th in the Premier League in 4 of the last 5 seasons. It is, without any question, relegation form.

Yet the chances of such form leading to the exit door for Kean are slim, and this is where things get murky. Kean is a client of SEM, a company of agent and entrepreneur, Jerome Anderson. It was SEM who brokered the deal between the Jack Walker Trust and Venky’s for the sale of the club to the Indian company. Within a month Kean was to replace Allardyce and John Jensen, another client of SEM, was brought in as his assistant. While Anderson remains influential at the club, the chances are that Kean, too, will be kept in place.

What this means for Rovers could be catastrophic. The victory over Arsenal may have papered over the cracks, but they will be shown up again before long. Should they continue in the same form as since Kean took over then they are staring at relegation. Would Venky’s be interested in continuing as owners of a Championship club? Will the fans stay away if their demands for Kean’s head are not met? Blackburn are standing at the top of a very slippery slope, and unless something soon changes for the better, there is a long fall ahead of them.

Photo courtesy of mattgilluleybrfc