Venky’s sack Blackburn Rovers manager after 57 days in charge, turns to Judan Ali

Blackburn Rovers' Indian owners Venky's have sacked manager Henning Berg after just 57 days in charge following a series of disappointing results.

Meanwhile, The Sun has reported that Venky's have offered former Arsenal trainee Ali, 39, a place in their new coaching set-up — even though they have yet to decide on Berg's successor.

But the appointment of British-born Ali is certain to alarm beleaguered supporters, who are fuming at the way the Indian poultry firm has ruined the club, says The Sun.

Ali had played a footballer in the 2007 Bollywood feature 'Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal'. He has no pedigree in English football management, yet is likely to pick the team for the game at Oakwell along with academy management duo Colin Hendry and Gary Bowyer.

The club said on its official website that Berg, along with assistant manager Eric Black, first team coach Iain Brunskill and goalkeeping coach Bobby Mimms, were departing with immediate effect.

Berg's last match in charge was a 1-0 defeat at Middlesbrough on Wednesday and that added to a grim run of results for the club, which was relegated from the Barclays Premier League to the English Championship at the end of last season, the report said. In his 10 matches in charge, the Norwegian presided over only one Championship victory, a 4-1 win against Peterborough United on November 17.

Berg's team drew three of the other matches and lost the remaining six, which is a poor record by any standards, but the Indian owners are still coming under fire for the decision to get rid of him so soon.

The Rao family, which controls Pune-based Venky's, has made a series of contentious moves since it bought the club in November 2010, not least sacking Sam Allardyce – now in charge of a resurgent West Ham United in the Premier League and replacing him with the deeply unpopular Steve Kean, it further added. Meanwhile, Mark Hughes has distanced himself from the Blackburn job, leaving the former Aston Villa coach Kevin MacDonald as favourite to head up a new managerial set-up at the club following the departure of Berg from Ewood Park.

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