Rovers Eye Holloway?

After the bizarre sacking of Sam Allardyce, speculation has been rife about who Blackburn Rovers want as their new manager, and rumours are growing that Blackpool manager Ian Holloway is very much in the mix.

Speaking to Sky Sports News this afternoon, Rovers co-owner Venkatesh Rao confirmed that they have a set target in mind to replace Big Sam, and that they wish to appoint a British manager.

Rao said:

‘There’s nothing against Mr Sam, all the best to him. This is basically to improve the management and the club.

‘It’s (the new manager) in the pipeline. It’s too early to mention today. We’ll come back to you as fast as possible.

‘We’ve been talking to the chairman who is there and other people. We have a target in mind.’

Holloway’s name was first mentioned in connection with the post (after initially being disregarded by the bookies) last night by Talksport’s Stan Collymore.

Reporting from the Manchester United v Arsenal game, Collymore stated that speculation was rife that Ollie’s name was absolutely in the frame, and as bizarre as it sounds, Collymore does (generally) know his stuff.

Now, I don’t think for one minute that Ollie would go to Blackburn, especially given his previous experiences and the way that they’ve treated Sam Allardyce. Indeed, this is perhaps one of the occasions where we’re thankful we’ve got Karl Oyston as chairman; as Ollie has said time and again, he shows great loyalty to his managers (unlike the Indians at Blackburn) and leaves his manager to run the footballing side of the club without interfering and thinking he knows better (again, unlike the Indians at Blackburn).

If Rovers do/have made an approach for Ollie, you can guarentee that Karl will play hardball (see the Grayson/Leeds incident for a case study), but on the flipside, could Ollie use their interest as a bargaining chip (as has been suggested he did with Hull’s interest in him this summer) in the sense that he could squeeze a few extra quid out of the chairman to spend next month? After all, wages aside, the Seasiders are arguably in a better financial position than Rovers.

One final factor to consider is that of Charlie Adam. The enigmatic Scot has been linked with a move to Rovers in the press; will Big Sam leaving diminish those rumours or heighten them?

As so often with football, I guess we can only ‘wait and see’…