I joked on Twitter after the game that I just couldn’t be bothered writing this, making me the Stephen Ireland of the blogosphere. Sometimes things are funny because they’re true, sometimes they’re not funny for precisely the same reason. I’m not laughing much right now.

I didn’t get chance to do a preview post yesterday, but I figured having played Blackburn so many times last season we all ought to have a good idea what we’d be in for. If you thought you’d see a Blackburn side playing fast, direct, counter attacking football, often with the ball in the air and not adverse to a touch of the physical game, pat yourself on the back, that’s what happened.

It’s a more basic version of the style of football we’ve employed at times and it’s effective. Frankly, since they struggled to create much of interest in front of Paul Robinson, if concentration levels had been maintained enough to not concede, I’d have been reasonably satisfied with a well fought for point at Ewood Park.

And that’s what it came down to in the end. Blackburn had enjoyed a spell of 15 to 20 minutes of pressure toward the end of the first half which allowed them to send in a number of crosses which forced Friedel to earn his corn the physical way. Pedersen’s delivery from the free kick caught him completely off guard. I don’t know if that’s what Pedersen intended, but, either way, it required a defensive lapse to end up in the net.

In injury time too. Why do we keep conceding late goals?

I have to put my hands up, I missed the free kick that Warnock conceded to gift the opportunity as I was writing a quick summary of the half. I should have known better and so should Warnock from what I could gather from my Twitter timelines at the time.

The 2nd half started in extremely promising fashion. I struggled to pick the system up, but it appeared for a while that Ash had been pushed up top with Gabby and Barry Bannan had pushed out to the left, a 4-4-2 if you will, but that soon seemed to morph again. I’ll cover it in the Statshack, but it looked like a lopsided 4-5-1, the weight being on the right side.

Regardless, Ash was getting into the box more, forcing a fine save from Robinson before heading Downing’s excellent follow up cross against the woodwork. It seemed just a matter of time before Villa would be back on terms.

But just as the game entered into the last 30 minutes, with Villa’s pressure failing to yield the crucial equaliser, Blackburn threatened to get a foot back into proceedings. Ciaran Clark was booked for clearly pulling his man back, he had a fairly lengthy discussion with the linesman about the incident, I can’t imagine what he was protesting about, but I suppose it’s worth leaving him something to think about. The resultant free kick was a reminder that Blackburn could be dangerous from the set play, or it should have.

Barely five minutes later, Villa failed to clear the lines properly from a corner and the ball fell nicely to Pedersen to fire in through a crowded box. 2-0 and a bit of a sucker punch, but another example of being punished for switching off.

Houllier responded by bringing off the perpetually disinterested Stephen Ireland and handing the expected debut to Robert Pires who looked more motivated and in tune with his team mates during his 22 minutes plus stoppage time on the pitch despite being 37 years old and a squad member for barely more than 48 hours.

I put a little statistic out on Twitter after the match: Stephen Ireland and Robert Pires both completed 17 passes during this game, but Ireland was on the pitch for 68 minutes. However, I should qualify that Pires came on with the game at 2-0 and Blackburn very happy to sit back, but I felt his quality and intelligence showed, although not everyone agreed with me.

That’s OK, opinions will vary, I’ll look at it in more detail in the Statshack, but at the moment I feel like I’m done making excuses for Ireland. He’s had plenty of time to at least look like he cares, even if every pass doesn’t come off, but he’s being shown up by two youngsters alongside him who had just four Premier League starts between them before kick off.

With a two goal cushion, Blackburn could not have been happier to sink into their shell, possibly knowing full well that our weakness is breaking down deep-sitting, stubborn opponents. Substitute Delfouneso’s first touch after coming on for Gabby in the 79th minute led to a shot just wide and was one of very few occasions where the back line was penetrated. That was one shot more than Gabby had managed all game by the way.

Otherwise, Villa were mostly forced to resort to shots from outside the box. I know there seems to be a bit of head scratching about Downing playing on the right for the whole game and that should be something to address in the Statshack, but there’s little point trying to get to the byline to cross in from the natural side if A) you’re playing a side that’s difficult to get behind and B) you don’t have the aerial threat to take advantage of those crosses anyway.

That said, after an excellent performance during 90 minutes on the left flank against Utd, it’s curious that Downing wouldn’t spend any time on that wing during this game, especially prior to Blackburn doubling the lead when the game was a little more open.

In that case, is it still fair to say that we missed Marc Albrighton? I think it probably is, not least because it meant that Ireland played!

Ultimately, it’s another disappointing loss resulting, largely, from lacking any real creativity and firepower in the final third of the pitch and silly lapses in concentration at the back at crucial times.

More importantly though, it smashes to bits any solace derived from being just a few points away from 5th place, or whatever. Despite the tightness of the table caused by the highest proportion of draws in English top flight history, we’re more or less where we should be. 17 points from 14 games is bottom half of the table form and projects to 46 points for the season if this pace continues. Again, that’s a middle of the pack performance in every way.

That said, we’ll probably go and beat Arsenal now. Sure, why not?