Blackburn Rovers are yet to bounce back from Venkys' ill-advised early manager call: View | OneFootball

Rovers' new owners wasted little time in making a change that ultimately did not work out

November 2010 proved to be a hugely significant period in the history of Blackburn Rovers.

By that point, the club had been run for the previous ten years by a trust set up by former owner Jack Walker.

However, all that would change at that point, when Indian poultry farmers Venkys agreed a deal to purchase a 99.9% controlling stake in the Ewood Park outfit.

It was reported that the group paid £23million for those shares, while also taking on £20million of the club's debt.

Having done that, the new owners wasted little time in putting their mark on Blackburn Rovers, by making a major managerial decision.

Sam Allardyce did not last long at Ewood Park under Venkys

Just under a month after that takeover of the club had been completed, it was announced that Sam Allardyce had been sacked as manager at Ewood Park.

At the time of his departure, Rovers sat 13th in the Premier League table, five points clear of the relegation zone after 17 games of the campaign.

In his one full season in charge of the club in 2009/10, Allardyce had guided the club to a tenth place finish in the top-flight of English football, also reaching the semi-finals of the League Cup.

Given he also had an impeccable record of keeping teams in a division, Blackburn's decision to dismiss him as manager did look to be something of a gamble taken by the new owners.

Indeed, that decision to sever ties with Allardyce, and their selection to replace him, would certainly backfire for Venkys and Rovers.

Managerial change saw Blackburn relegated

In completing that managerial change, the owners took the decision to hand the role of first-team boss to Steve Kean, a member of the coaching staff at Ewood Park under Allardyce.

Just as much as the sacking of his predecessor had been a surprise, the appointment of the Scot as his replacement would also raise plenty of eyebrows.

Not only had Kean never held a senior managerial role before, but his agent, Jerome Anderson, was also heavily involved in advising Venkys during and after their takeover of Blackburn.

Indeed, while Rovers had never really looked like being dragged into a relegation battle under Allardyce that season, that changed under his successor.

A run of poor results left the club looking nervously over their shoulder, and going into the final day, they were still not assured of safety.

It was only a 3-2 victory at Molineux over Wolves - who were also fighting to avoid relegation - on the final day of the 2010/11 campaign, that confirmed Blackburn's Premier League status.

However, that would sadly prove to be little more than a stay of execution for the Ewood Park club, when it came to their place in the top-flight of English football.

Under Kean, who seemed to retain the backing of the owners and very few others, Blackburn struggled throughout the 2011/12 campaign.

Despite a dismal start to the season that left fans calling for both the manager and owners to go, Venkys handed the manager a new contract in November 2011.

That was also in spite of the fact the club had won just one league game all season, and sat bottom of the Premier League table.

There were other controversies as well, with Kean being forced to pay damages to Allardyce, after footage of comments he previously made about his predecessor emerged in the 2011/12 season.

Meanwhile, his claims that he had been forced to "forefeit" a League Cup defeat away at Cardiff City in November 2011, also unsurprisingly, is not going down well among fans.

All of that contributed to a growing ill-feeling around the club that split the Blackburn fanbase between those wanting to protest and those wanting to back the players on the pitch.

Amid those issues, Rovers would indeed be relegated following a 1-0 defeat at home to Wigan Athletic in May 2012, in their first full season since swapping Allardyce for Kean.

Since then, the club have so far been unable to return to the Premier League. After Kean finally left in September 2012, they would, for a period, lurch from one manager to the next.

That generated a lack of stability around the club that made a promotion push difficult, and Blackburn were even relegated to League One in the summer of 2017.

While they managed to make an immediate return to the Championship, the Premier League has so far proved elusive.

Indeed, the financial impact of that relegation from the top-flight and their struggles to return, have limited Blackburn's budget, leaving them playing catch-up to many of their current rivals.

Given the windfalls they would have received had they remained in the Premier League, things would surely have been different for the club than what they have been in recent years.

With Allardyce's proven ability to keep sides at that level, there will no doubt be many Blackburn fans wondering what might have been had Venkys not made such a big decision on his future, so soon after their takeover at Ewood Park.