Blackburn were one of the first Championship clubs to recognise last season’s manager would not carry them into the upcoming campaign, yet it has taken them over a month to officially replace their former boss with former Malmo coach Jon Dahl Tomasson.
The 45-year-old’s agreement to take charge at Ewood Park and be the first new head coach in this corner of Lancashire in half a decade had been widely reported since the weekend and now the former Denmark striker will be hoping to leave a better impact on English football from the dugout than the pitch.
Tomasson arrives at Ewood Park with a CV glowing with titles and European football, but little in the way of definitive proof he is the right man to take Blackburn forward in what is sure to be a difficult season after a summer of mass change on and off the pitch.
A host of last season’s stars are on the move, the majority on free transfers. Centre-back Darragh Lenihan has already swapped Rovers for Middlesbrough, while midfielder Joe Rothwell is out of contract and key players like Ben Brereton Diaz will be linked with more glamorous moves throughout the summer.
Whether Tomasson has the requisite skills to combat such a cruel summer is unknown; his most recent role in charge of Swedish giants Malmo was an altogether different proposition. In truth, there aren’t many managers within Blackburn’s reach who could offer assurances of guiding them through a potentially turbulent 2022/23 with ease. Many out of their reach would struggle too.
This writer is not naïve enough to once again tip Blackburn for relegation – he is still bearing the brunt of doing so last summer for a club who occupied and then chased promotion and play-off spots through to the penultimate day of the campaign – but there aren’t many, if any, second-tier clubs facing a summer of change quite to the same degree as Blackburn.
In that respect, Blackburn are almost impossible to pinpoint. The primary source of frustration was in taking so long to tie down a new manager when it had been long apparent that Mowbray was not long for the role in the latter months of the season when Blackburn’s surprise promotion push wilted.
It is impossible to know whether Tomasson is the right man for the job until the parameters of success are known. Promotion was a pipe dream which would have made Super Mario blush last season. To consolidate and build a new squad while trying to bring more fans into the stadium against the backdrop of a…
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