Can Blackburn Rovers shock the championship and win automatic promotion?

06/01/22 1499

After matchday 16 in the Championship, Tony Mowbray’s Blackburn Rovers found themselves sitting in 2nd place in the league standings. Nine matchdays later, Blackburn Rovers are second in the division and just three points off of first-place Bournemouth.

Each of Blackburn’s last nine matches in the Championship ended without defeat as Mowbray’s side bagged seven wins and two draws. Blackburn are the Championship’s in-form team as the league breaks this weekend for the FA Cup third round.

At the beginning of the campaign, Blackburn were outsiders to qualify for the promotion playoffs. The club had sold last season’s leading scorer Adam Armstrong to Southampton for £15 million and winger Harvey Elliott returned to Liverpool after a loan at the club.

The loss of both players was expected to see Blackburn’s goalscoring drop off. Yet, Rovers are the second-best team in terms of goalscoring with 43 goals in the division. Chilean international Ben Brereton has been a revelation at the club.

The England-born striker has 20 goals, which is second in the Championship. Just 22, Brereton is having a career year. He had never scored more than seven goals in a single campaign – which came in 2020-21 at Blackburn.

Now, Brereton is fuelling Blackburn's ascent toward automatic promotion and potentially winning the Championship. Brereton could be Rovers next big player to cash in on, if the club do not end up achieving promotion.

Since Venky’s took over Blackburn Rovers in 2010, there hasn’t been a lot to celebrate at the club. Blackburn Rovers were relegated in 2012 to the Championship and in 2017, fell into League One.

Immediate promotion followed a season later, but this is the first campaign in which Blackburn Rovers have flirted with promotion back to the top flight of English football since being relegated 10 seasons ago.

There is still a lot of football left to play in the Championship and some teams have games in hand due to postponements. If Blackburn can continue their fine form and are able to benefit from other promotion candidates dropping points, then automatic promotion is a possibility.

Blackburn’s defence could ultimately be the issue that holds them back from promotion. Rovers have conceded 28 times this season. However, Blackburn’s defence is improving as it conceded a mere one goal across the last six Championship matches.

Manager Mowbray took over Blackburn in February 2017. He replaced Owen Coyle but could stop Rovers from being relegated to League One. In his first full season in charge, Rovers returned to the Championship and have played consistently ever since.

Mowbray is the longest-serving manager in the Championship. His hard work could pay off in May with automatic promotion to send Blackburn back to the Premier League.