YOU make your own luck in football.

So, if the recent chain of events at Ewood Park is judged to be unlucky, then someone, somewhere is making an almighty hash of things.

It is clear that Blackburn Rovers supporters feel the most recent problem - the likely failure to secure the services of Sven Goran Eriksson - is the fault of the board, and chairman Robert Coar in particular.

But, for once, I think this criticism is misdirected.

Rovers set their stall out to replace Ray Harford with a top level manager with international experience.

After chasing other worthy targets, Eriksson became a natural choice.

This 'honourable man', though, insisted on seeing out his contract with Sampdoria.

Faced with two options, either to pursue other targets or to place their faith in Tony Parkes' ability to avoid relegation, Rovers chose to bide their time in the belief that Eriksson was overwhelmingly the right man for the job.

At the time the decision and the board's enterprise was widely applauded.

And, having seen such an interim arrangement work practically for Arsenal and Arsene Wenger, there was no reason to suspect that the Eriksson situation would blow up in their faces.

In this respect, the Rovers board WERE unlucky on a number of counts: That Sampdoria strung together such an impressive run of results, that Lazio suddenly found the need for a new boss and that the honourable Swede was, in fact, graduated from the Ronnie Biggs school of honour.

Having said all that, Rovers have yet again demonstrated their singularly appalling public relations skills.

Were they trying to stay loyal to Eriksson by remaining silent over his intentions?

Were they protecting Dalglish by keeping his "footballing reasons" for quitting under wraps?

Would it not have been better to simply address the possibility that Shearer could be leaving?

And just maybe that glaring communications deficiency at the club is a major factor behind, and common thread running through, the club's cascading loss of credibility. This is not just a locally held belief.

One respected national newspaper man, who covers clubs throughout the country, today described Rovers to me as "the kings of making themselves look foolish".

I know that every Danish reporter, who descended on Blackburn yesterday to try and cover the Pedersen transfer, will leave with a thoroughly hostile attitude towards the club after a total lack of co-operation.

Of course, Blackburn Rovers are not in business to satisfy or even please the media.

It must surely, though, be in their interests to explain their actions to obviously disenchanted supporters.

Failure to do so can only lead to ill-informed opinion, counter-speculation and consequent bad feeling on the terraces.

That is not good business in anybody's book.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.