Adam Forshaw says Blackburn Rovers need to turn their home form around when they meet Middlesbrough at Ewood Park on Saturday, with the 34-year-old calling the issue one the team must address immediately. Blackburn won only four league matches at home last season, and Forshaw said that record was not good enough.
The midfielder wants Blackburn to build on the encouraging signs from their opening-night performance at Wolves, where they scored a couple of goals and took plenty from the occasion. But he was also clear that the club could not keep leaning on away results to stay clear of trouble, even after securing safety that way last season.
Forshaw’s timing matters because this is not just any home fixture. He is facing Middlesbrough, the club he spent three seasons with and for whom he made nearly 100 appearances, and Blackburn are trying to show that the positives from Wolves can carry into a very different setting. Middlesbrough finished fifth last term and still ended up beaten in the play-offs, while Blackburn were left to reflect on a season in which their home record needed the away form to make up the difference.
That gap is what gives Saturday its edge. Blackburn know the shape of their season last time was built on contradiction: strong enough away from home to stay up, but too often short of control at Ewood Park. Forshaw said the dressing room believes it has enough quality and grit to respond, but the real test is whether that belief starts to show against a side that has already been through its own difficult moments and arrives looking for a result of its own.
For Blackburn, this is the first chance to prove that the concerns of last season are not still hanging over them. If they can make Ewood Park match the energy they showed at Wolves, the early Middlesbrough News will be about recovery rather than repetition.
