ROVERS reporter Rich Sharpe picks out three talking points from the home draw with Birmingham City.

NUMBERS GAME

ANOTHER game, another injury for Blackburn Rovers, with Charlie Mulgrew now set for another spell on the sidelines.

Martin Samuelsen, Jack Byrne, John O’Sullivan, Scott Wharton and Marvin Emnes have all departed since Rovers made any additions to their squad, while the future of Ben Marshall is less than certain.

Concerns remain over Corry Evans’ long-term fitness, Tommie Hoban is still some weeks from a return, while Anthony Stokes and Danny Guthrie have both been short of game-time in recent months.

So there are certainly gaps appearing within the squad.

NO BENCH BOOST

FEW could argue against the need for changes as the second half wore on, with Rovers in need of fresh legs as they failed to build on the promising spell either side of the hour mark.

Sadly, the substitutes didn’t have the impact that Owen Coyle will have hoped, with Birmingham looking the more likely to force a winner in the closing stages.

Sam Gallagher had worked himself in to the ground, but with his 83rd minute departure for Craig Conway, who had just two days training under his belt, Rovers lost something of their attacking impetus.

Conway, Anthony Stokes and Danny Guthrie, who replaced Hope Akpan in the 89th minute, had trained for just two days before being included on the bench, such was the shortage of numbers.

That only highlighted the need for fresh faces before the January 31 deadline.

Starting young players in such difficult circumstances would be a big ask, but Connor Mahoney may well have been a better option to add a spark late on.

GOAL-DEN GRAHAM

GOALS change games, and goals in first-half stoppage time change team talks.  You can well imagine that both Owen Coyle and Gianfranco Zola’s message to their players at the half-time interval will have altered after Danny Graham’s equaliser.

That made it nine in his last 11 league outings, and 11 for the season, for the Rovers striker who really is becoming a talisman for his side.

The home fans were understandably frustrated by what they had seen in a below-par first-half showing in which Rovers had showed little by way of imagination, and struggled to lay a glove on Birmingham.

But they were to come up with their best passage of play just prior to the break, which Graham finished with the precision of a man in form.

Rovers’ inability to contain Birmingham in the opening half an hour saw Sam Gallagher having to be sacrificed to play on the wing, but to his credit, Graham led the line with distinction and once again coming up with the goods in front of goal.