#BrentfordFC v #BlackburnRoversFC - 12.30pm Griffin Park

No midweek game has allowed some breathing time and a welcome boost to energy levels before Blackburn Rovers travel down for Saturday’s fixture against Brentford FC.

5 points currently separate Brentford in 4th and Blackburn in 8th as Thomas Frank goes head to head with the experience of Tony Mowbray.

Mowbray's side are another of the famous 4-2-3-1 cohort.

They play with a midfield double pivot which consists of a central midfielder alongside Lewis Travis. This is now consistently Bradley Johnson although Downing has some minutes in this role.

The back four is conservative in positioning and can find themselves struggling when asked to do too much in possession.

Blackburn are marginally more interesting when compared to some of the other teams that play a similar system in how the 4 players ahead of the pivot are interchangeable within games and on a game to game basis.

This is more likely through injury than choice but Mowbray’s use of Armstrong particularly can catch opposition unaware.

Bradley Dack picked up a serious knee injury in December which ruled him out for the rest of the season, and with him, you would assume, any serious aspirations of a play-off assault.

Yet without their most important player, Blackburn have found an approach that enables them to still win matches.

They’re a hard side to pin down. When trying to identify what they do exceptionally well you come up against difficulty. This in itself could be selling them short as they limited Hull to zero shots on target in their last home match, yet Rovers concede an average 12.4 shots against pg. The same number as Barsnley, Hull and Wigan.

As mentioned, they play the now common 4-2-3-1 system but don’t play it at either end of the scale. We’re not seeing an ultra counter-attacking side that sits low snuffing out anything on the edge of their box to create transitional situations, or in contrast a team that attacks well via heavy possession or in a ball dominating sense.



They sort of fall in between the two styles, trying to develop a possession based build up game through Travis but rarely finding their way into the final third, and then on the defensive side, they’re not preventing opponents from getting into the final 3rd and creating dangerous moments.

What is striking when watching them back is that they don’t tend to apply much pressure to the opposition player in possession. They prefer to defend space and the off the ball movements, waiting for opponents to make mistakes.

We put together a collection of Blackburn’s recent goals against. The position holding and patient defensive style is clear to see. Direct running or quick forward play can catch the defensive shape completely unaware. These are only goals, not chances conceded.

Dack provided Blackburn with a lot of high up the field final 3rd pressures out possession, he’d frantically move side to side forcing opponents to play around him or go long and positioned himself as almost a central forward.

They’ve lost that energy form the forward line and can now look laboured in these areas.

Gallagher is soon to be returning and could feature in Saturday’s fixture which would provide an advanced axis for Rovers to work from with Graham struggling to have much impact out of possession.

Charlton, in Rovers last away tie did well in possession, with Taylor testing the back line from open play and set-pieces with regularity. Similar can be said for Hull at Ewood Park with both likely aggrieved to come away with nothing with how much ball they saw. From being largely comfortable and showing good attacking intent, The Tigers quickly found themselves 2 - 0 down after a wonder strike from Armstrong and a goal from an uncleared ball via a corner, scrambled in on the line. Mowbray’s side found themselves 3-0 up after a well taken strike following a goal-keeping error. 3-0 without really creating too much at all.

Blackburn are one of 4 sides in the top 10 to have a negative shot differential.

In basic terms, Rovers concede more shots per game than they are taking yet have still found a way to keep pace with the playoff hunting pack.

This now needs to be maintained without Holtby, who also is out for the remainder of the season and joins Corry Evans on the list of long-term midfield absentees.

As the injuries mount up it should normally get easier to predict opposition line-ups yet with Blackburn this is not the case.

Stuart Downing is partly to blame.

The ex-Boro man can play a number of roles within this side. He can play all positions on the left hand wing, as an inverted winger on the right hand side, as an attacking midfielder or as a progressive passer alongside Travis in a central pivot position.

For a player of his age he is still performing at a surprisingly high level. With his left-foot, he continues to deliver dangerous set-pieces from any position on the pitch.

At 35, he can still carry the ball from the middle to the final third but has now rounded his game off, developing the ability to drop into a deeper midfield role and act as a volume passer gaining Blackburn some central control.

For Brentford to create chances, it should be the case of using regular build up techniques and rotations to pull Blackburn out of position.

Blackburn got the better of the Bees up at Ewood Park but should be all too aware of the ability of forwards like Benrahma and the type of third man movement that can make Griffin Park such a difficult place to come away with a clean sheet.

Unlike Hull, Brentford will only shoot from distance if the situation absolutely requires it, so the tactic of applying little pressure and waiting for mistakes or a team to run out of patience may not have the desired effect in TW8.

Depending on injuries recovering in time, we should see a familiar starting lineup for Brentford. Baptiste or Marcondes will likely deputise if any find the lunchtime kick off comes around too soon.

We should have an intriguing game in store, Blackburn tend to keep score lines tight and are rarely beaten by more than two goals, it’s happened just twice in the league since Brentford’s 5-2 demolition when David Raya was in goal for the opposition.