Returning ace Leon warns Ewood striker rivals: I want your starting spots (From Lancashire Telegraph)
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Returning ace Leon warns Ewood striker rivals: I want your starting spots
8:01am Tuesday 5th February 2013 in Sport
By Andy Cryer, Blackburn Rovers reporter
LEON Best has warned his Blackburn Rovers’ strike rivals ‘I will be breathing down your neck soon’ after insisting he can return stronger than ever.
Rovers’ £3.5million summer signing from Newcastle United returned to full training late last week after spending the season so far on the sidelines with a cruciate knee ligament injury.
The 26-year-old knows, once full fitness is achieved, he will face a fierce battle for places but insists he is relishing the challenge.
Jordan Rhodes, who scored his 17th and 18th league goal for the club on Saturday, has struck up a fruitful partnership with Colin-Kazim Richards while DJ Campbell is expected to be added on loan from QPR on Friday.
An injury to Rangers’ new signing Loic Remy is unlikely to prevent the former Blackpool man joining on loan, with a view to a permanent signing, with David Goodwillie and Nuno Gomes also in the scrap of the strikers.
But, having yet to play a competitive game for the club, Best is just looking forward to being involved again, although his first team return is unlikely to be for a few weeks yet.
Best said: “It has been a long time coming, it feels great to be back and it is just a matter of being fit now.
“It feels good. I need to get my fitness up for a game. Maybe a few 20 minutes here and there in a reserve game or two and then back in the first team. I will be breathing down their necks soon enough.
“A few days here and there I have been a pain and come in stressed, just through wanting to be back so much, but now I am back all my tests have come out good and I am stronger than I was before.”
Best was heralded as Rovers’ big summer signing until a serious knee injury picked up in a pre-season friendly against AEK Athens saw the club forced to look elsewhere, with Jordan Rhodes brought in towards the end of August.
“I have been to the specialist a few times and he has not told me what I wanted to hear,” Best told Rovers player. “Obviously I wanted to be back a lot sooner but now I am at the point I am back, I am delighted and it is probably better that I did wait as it feels much better.
“It is a matter of getting sharp and used to what I am doing. Just being on the ball and back out there with the players is a lovely feeling.
“I love training, I love playing football. It has been hard but I feel much happier now.
As soon as they told me I could train I have just felt much happier. I am buzzing to be back.
“When I score my first goal I will be running to the medical team because they have been amazing.
“I have been with Dave Le Fevre every day, he has been a big part in my life since the operation as have all the medical team. I have a good relationship with them.
“He has been great with me. It is down to me to carry on doing my strength and exercises to keep everything getting stronger and stronger.
“The positives out of the injury are it has opened me eyes up to things I have never done before, like keeping my body as strong as it can be by doing little exercises I have never thought of before.”
Comments are closed on this article.

Comments (55)
8:28am Tue 5 Feb 13
Harwoodstblue says...
Our season could be decided, one way or the other, before Best comes back and it will probably be next season before we eventually see the best of him.
Welcome back though. We should have more than enough in attack now, it's some decent midfielders that we need.
9:01am Tue 5 Feb 13
Tatts says...
9:02am Tue 5 Feb 13
Tatts says...
9:45am Tue 5 Feb 13
xrayspex77 says...
9:51am Tue 5 Feb 13
hasslem hasslem says...
10:06am Tue 5 Feb 13
Jansen_10 says...
Sort it out Cryer!
11:43am Tue 5 Feb 13
Only1Garner says...
11:56am Tue 5 Feb 13
Captain Dreckley says...
12:02pm Tue 5 Feb 13
turd moor says...
1:29pm Tue 5 Feb 13
burnleyglentoran says...
Wolves and Bolton are both struggling like B********s. Forest have got problems at board room level.
Only at Bol-Ewood, will you see the nasty, holier-than-though, arrogant, god given right to premier league entitlement, bile spewing, hate filled, lashing out at everything that moves, unwilling to accept a mediocre football team attitude. An attitude that means chucking snow balls at kids is acceptable.
Other clubs fans accept peaks and troughs.Not the deluded of Bol-Ewood
2:14pm Tue 5 Feb 13
merlinrabbit says...
2:14pm Tue 5 Feb 13
alfa111 says...
2:20pm Tue 5 Feb 13
To.guy says...
2:27pm Tue 5 Feb 13
burnleyglentoran says...
2:29pm Tue 5 Feb 13
kazluvsrovers says...
We just need a good midfielder who can pass the ball as Murphy keeps
passing it to his invisible team mate.
One more defender and we should be in good contention for the play offs.
COYB!!!!
2:59pm Tue 5 Feb 13
bburnrover says...
3:03pm Tue 5 Feb 13
hasslem hasslem says...
back in your box you ignorant git
3:05pm Tue 5 Feb 13
Only1Garner says...
Now get back to your own site (sorry SH*TE) and leave us alone
3:15pm Tue 5 Feb 13
MxMave says...
4:06pm Tue 5 Feb 13
Azul de madrid says...
4:34pm Tue 5 Feb 13
To.guy says...
5:05pm Tue 5 Feb 13
Navy-Rover says...
Perhaps you and a*rse tickler share the same brain cell? You come on here,a Rovers thread, and claim that we are 'hate filled, bile spewing' etc etc. Try looking at your own posts, you yourself are doing exactly the same thing yourself! Moron! I will readily admit that i can't stand your club and quite a portion of it's fans but at least i'm no hypocrite!
At the end of the day, you are a sad little dingle who knows that his tinpot team will never amount to anything and will never achieve anything except mediocrity at best. No matter how much boll0x you spew out in your very own hypocritical hate filled posts, you know in your own feeble little mind that Bonleh will forever be in the shadow of the Mighty Rovers.
Sure, you are above us in the league, well done. But do you seriously believe that this will last very long? You're more deluded than you claim us Rovers fans are, if you do!
Oh and i suggest that you do some research on how 'other clubs fans accept peaks and troughs'. Bonleh fans have never been in outrage at their own club have they?! Of course, in your pathetic little world, the Rovers fans are the only ones ever, in the entire history of football, to protest and call for managers to be sacked!
You really need to check your comments before posting them because it is plain for all to see that your football knowledge is severely lacking and that you either can't be bothered to look things up, or just simply don't have the mental capacity to do so. It's quite embarassing really.
Arte et Labore
5:06pm Tue 5 Feb 13
Navy-Rover says...
Perhaps you and a*rse tickler share the same brain cell? You come on here,a Rovers thread, and claim that we are 'hate filled, bile spewing' etc etc. Try looking at your own posts, you yourself are doing exactly the same thing yourself! Moron! I will readily admit that i can't stand your club and quite a portion of it's fans but at least i'm no hypocrite!
At the end of the day, you are a sad little dingle who knows that his tinpot team will never amount to anything and will never achieve anything except mediocrity at best. No matter how much boll0x you spew out in your very own hypocritical hate filled posts, you know in your own feeble little mind that Bonleh will forever be in the shadow of the Mighty Rovers.
Sure, you are above us in the league, well done. But do you seriously believe that this will last very long? You're more deluded than you claim us Rovers fans are, if you do!
Oh and i suggest that you do some research on how 'other clubs fans accept peaks and troughs'. Bonleh fans have never been in outrage at their own club have they?! Of course, in your pathetic little world, the Rovers fans are the only ones ever, in the entire history of football, to protest and call for managers to be sacked!
You really need to check your comments before posting them because it is plain for all to see that your football knowledge is severely lacking and that you either can't be bothered to look things up, or just simply don't have the mental capacity to do so. It's quite embarassing really.
Arte et Labore
5:13pm Tue 5 Feb 13
happiness says...
5:57pm Tue 5 Feb 13
blueblooded says...
great comment To.Guy, made me chuckle lol
6:02pm Tue 5 Feb 13
French Rover says...
But Danny Murphy will play better and better for us under Appleton as the team around him strengthens and improves and allows him to play a more expansive game.
It is surely something to look forward to when Best is fit and competing for a place against the likes of CKR and DJC....goals goals goals just what we need as this has been a major weakness for the team this season. Just a couple of weeks ago there were only 5 teams had scored less than us, though that is changing now.
6:05pm Tue 5 Feb 13
blueblooded says...
if MA can get midfield sorted by weekend then we can really start expecting decent performaces.
anyone who had doubts about Appys ability to get the best out of players has to be reconsidering at the moment and his forthright and firm stance on players only wearing the shirt if they truly WANT to play for the club is refreshing and is obviously working. Happy to see then that even Best is going to have to compete for his place in the squad.
6:11pm Tue 5 Feb 13
fishcake 75 says...
6:46pm Tue 5 Feb 13
RoversMCMLXXV says...
Of all the selective short term memory dingle fodder that pollutes these pages, glentoran is the master. A master of envy, hate and denial.
6:56pm Tue 5 Feb 13
burnleyglentoran says...
Absoluteley typical!
You snipe at our losses which are probably less than your own!!!
How many have YOU lost since you found your natural position - 10,000
Ha ha ha ha
And as for this constant " you're more interested in B******ds than your own team" and " you judge your success on how we're doing" garbage.
Let me just remind you that after Walker bought your your first title for donkeys years your main rivals were Man Utd!!
However, we got turned over by Brum the other week and guess what?!- B*****d fans commenting all over the article.
When we were on the way out of the prem you lot were giving it the big one for months.
"Chumpionship" "Fizzy pop league" sound familiar lads!?
What goes around comes around.
All the best from East Lancs top dogs ( as I think the league table will show you)
7:44pm Tue 5 Feb 13
Angry From Accrington says...
7:57pm Tue 5 Feb 13
hasslem hasslem says...
8:06pm Tue 5 Feb 13
RoversMCMLXXV says...
What goes around comes around? Is that a real comment? Have you no shame? Other dingles must read your trash and cringe.
It appears that almost 4 decades on and nothing has gone around or come around. When Rovers were 5hit, Bonleh were 5hitter and when we were good, you were still 5hit.
All Bonlehs got to show after 35 years is being above Rovers for 3 weeks and look at how you all react.
A sad sad man glentoran and it's only a matter of time before normal service will resume.
8:28pm Tue 5 Feb 13
Stone Island: says...
8:33pm Tue 5 Feb 13
RoversMCMLXXV says...
8:51pm Tue 5 Feb 13
Captain Dreckley says...
9:25pm Tue 5 Feb 13
Navy-Rover says...
Once again your dizzying intellect astounds us all with your comment about Man Utd being our main rivals in the Premiership… errmmm… well yes, of course they were you feckwit, we were in the same league! What exactly is your point here? Oh yes, that’s right, you don’t have one!
I assure you that even though Man Utd were our main rivals back then, we never neglected your insignificant little club. We still sang our anti-dingle songs no matter who we were playing, despite the fact that you were unlikely to play us unless through the cup. We have always despised you, and we always will.
Top dogs eh? I think that is rather insulting to man’s best friend! Enjoy your brief spell being higher in the league, I have a funny feeling it will be short lived!
Arte et Labore
9:27pm Tue 5 Feb 13
noddymcleod says...
C'mon Andy why not say "Best who has never established himself at any club, but looked a bit promising in pre-season..."
10:21pm Tue 5 Feb 13
burnleyglentoran says...
Do you really think in your heart of hearts that Man U saw your sad little, in the limelight for a season, of a team, as rivals.
You lot may have had, and still do, delusions of granduer, but ask any Man utd fan who were and still are their rivals. Sorry lads I doubt you'll get a mention. Try Liverpool or City.
B*******d fans are like a smackhead from Shad that won the lottery. Blew the lot on drugs and the lifestyle and now lashes out at friends and family now all the moneys gone but still has the habit.
BRKFC - Champagne taste on beer money.......
10:37pm Tue 5 Feb 13
hasslem hasslem says...
prat
11:40pm Tue 5 Feb 13
Navy-Rover says...
Who cares whether Man Utd saw us as rivals or not, it is completely irrelevant... a lot like your posts really!
Bonleh have always been the despised rivals of the infinately superior Rovers. No true Rover would ever dispute that. But at that time, Man Utd were our biggest threat, nothing more in it than that.
The bitterness and jealousy that you dingles have of the Rovers is really quite sad. Your references to Blackburn's less 'attractive' areas are comical; have you been to Bonleh recently? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Blackburn is certainly no paradise but you can hardly put Bonleh in that category either!
Anyway, It matters not what you believe or say, the Rovers have been and will always be a far more successful club than Bonleh... FACT!
Lets see how much you feel like gobbing off at the end of the season shall we?
Arte et Labore
3:54am Wed 6 Feb 13
Roverthere says...
3:56am Wed 6 Feb 13
Roverthere says...
10:04am Wed 6 Feb 13
bburnrover says...
10:28am Wed 6 Feb 13
RoversMCMLXXV says...
10:32am Wed 6 Feb 13
srvp28 says...
As for Manchester United and ourselves being rivals, I think you'll find that it was the press that labelled us that because, for the first three years of the Premier League we were challenging them at the top end of the table. Also, it was more to do with the history between Daglish and Ferguson the geographical location of both teams. Look how long Arsenal, then Chelsea, were considered United's main rivals and you'll see the point I'm making. Personally, I've always considered Burnley to be our main rivals but for a long time our closest rivals were Bolton, only because we've spent a lot of time in the same divisions of them.
As for burnleyglentoran's attempts to play down the Dingles obsession with Rovers by mentioning that it was OUR fans who were all over their page when they lost to Birmingham, are you f***ing kidding me? That's called 'a dose of your own medicine', pal. How often do Rovers fans swamp the Burnley articles with ridiculous comments? That's right, hardly ever. Yet, should you check every article, with 10 comments or more, that's appeared on the Rovers page over the last two years, nineteen times out of twenty you'll inevitably find some moronic statement made by a Dingle. Usually, if we get a result and you Burnley don't then there are no comments from your lot until later that night or early in the morning, but there are comments. In fact, the most popular threads on claretsmad are usually about Rovers. Sorry, now that IS obsession.
As for you, fanny_tickler, your obsession with Rovers is such that you don't mind what you post on our pages so long as you post something. If someone moans about Venky's you mock them for having ideas above their station, remind them that Rovers aren't in the Premier League, insist they'd be bankrupt without Venky's, etc. If someone insists that their fellow Rovers fans get behind Venky's and the team you laugh at them for being positive with those chicken farmers in charge, belly laugh because they're trying to be positive after a recent win, claim that you and your fellow Dingles would've run Venky's out of town a long time ago, etc. In short, you continually contradict yourself just so that you can try and have a laugh at Rovers expense. I don't blame you, after everything that's gone on I wouldn't expect anything less from the majority of Dingles who post on here. Hell, we even have a few idiots ourselves who's comments do nothing but fuel your flames, so-to-speak.
However, you constantly refer to us as the laughing stock of English football. This is where you need to stop devoting so much time to these pages and get back to the real world. Open the curtains. Put the radio on. Go for a walk. Do anything that'll help you realise that it's not May 2012 anymore. Aside from you Dingles and a handful of teenage know-f**k-alls on other forums, nobody is laughing anymore. Some fans worry that this could happen to them. Where pundits once scolded us they now sympathise with us. It stopped being funny to anybody with half a brain cell a long time ago.
As for being the top team in East Lancashire, you are, but only as far as current league positions go. Should we win our game in hand then we go above you, hardly something you should be bragging about. We've had a disastrous two years where chaos replaced efficiency. We were there for the taking back in December but you still couldn't beat us. Yet, you celebrate a home draw as if it was an away win against Real Madrid. Still, if it stopped you from smashing up your own town...
And you have the nerve to call us clueless and classless.
12:16pm Wed 6 Feb 13
fanny.tickler says...
12:35pm Wed 6 Feb 13
oreilly21 says...
anyway, great news about Leon Best. he is badly needed because realstically Nuno and Goodwillie are not the best options.
Best will be invaluable especially in the final 20 minutes of matches when we are chasing the game. Great to see him back
2:19pm Wed 6 Feb 13
Venkytrash says...
2:19pm Wed 6 Feb 13
uber blue and white says...
2:23pm Wed 6 Feb 13
Venkytrash says...
5:28pm Wed 6 Feb 13
RoversMCMLXXV says...
3 weeks above Rovers in the league, chickens on the pitch, snowball gate, not to mention Bonleh having more possession on derby day.
It doesn't take much to please those who have had little to cheer about over the last 4 decades.
Lets hope for your desperate sake Appleton turns out to be as bad a manger as Steve Kean or Henning Berg, otherwise your 2 or so years of joy at the demise of the club you all exist to hate will soon be over.
Just out of interest fanny, do you think Appleton is as bad as Kean or Berg?
I think we both know the answer.
3:56am Thu 7 Feb 13
Roverthere says...
9:17am Thu 7 Feb 13
MatthewCA says...
then play like a balatoli
2:28pm Fri 8 Feb 13
noddy57 says...