By Oscar Wilde
September 29 2006

Latics travel to Blackburn Rovers on Sunday hopeful that they can improve on the pitiful shower of excrement that passed for professional Premiership football against Watford last weekend.

Jason Roberts has a slim chance of making the Rovers squad if his groin injury heals rapidly enough and Lee McCulloch is back in contention for Latics after four games out with a thigh strain.

 

Blackburn midfielder Robbie Savage should be fit despite being taken off during Thursday's 2-0 Uefa Cup win over Salzburg with a tight hamstring.

 

Paul Jewell denied the Latics faithful, who have had to endure ridiculous admittance price hikes and shirt rip-offs, their right to express their feelings when he said: "I never thought we would be booed off in a Premiership game. I'm protective towards my players and, if the fans want to boo me, that's fine. I'm not particularly bothered about that.

 

"But to boo the team in the second home game of the season wasn't right in my book, even though the fans were rightly disappointed. 

 

"I care about the players, I care about the club, and while it was only a minority who were booing, I think it is disappointing.

 

"We're a close-knit close bunch here. The players are like my family, and you don't want to hear them being booed." 

 

As the great Brian Clough said: “If God had meant football to be played in the air, he would have put grass in the sky”.

 

Blackburn (from): Friedel, Neill, Khizanishvili, Tugay, Emerton, Savage, Bentley, Nonda, McCarthy, Pedersen, Mokoena, Jeffers, Gallagher, Ooijer, Brown, Gray, Peter, McEveley, Roberts.

Latics (from): Kirkland, Jackson, Hall, De Zeeuw, Kilbane, Camara, Heskey, Johansson, Landzaat, Boyce, Scharner, Teale, Cotterill, Cywka, Webster, Skoko, Baines, Valencia, Todorov, McCulloch, Pollitt.

 

Referee: Howard Webb (Yorkshire)