History suggests Blackburn Rovers have no way of telling if recruit will flop or not: View | OneFootball

There will be plenty of scrutiny on one specific signing at Ewood Park this season

Blackburn Rovers were certainly active over the course of the summer transfer window.

While seven first-team players left the club either permanently or on-loan, a further nine would arrive to bolster John Eustace's side.

With several of those already making promising starts to life at Ewood Park, and the calibre of others suggesting they can do the same, there is now a greater sense of optimism around the club.

After only avoiding relegation from the Championship on the final day of last season, there is hope this new squad will be able to help Blackburn climb the table come the end of the campaign.

Among the many areas of the pitch where the club moved to change their options this summer, was in goal.

A goalkeeping change at Ewood Park

On what was a busy deadline day for the Lancashire outfit in which several players arrived, one of those to confirm their move to the club, was Balazs Toth.

The goalkeeper signed on a permanent deal from Fehervar FC in his native Hungary, for an undisclosed fee.

Toth has put pen to paper on a three-year deal with Blackburn, securing his future at Ewood Park until the end of the 2026/27 season.

Given the lack of coverage of Hungarian football in England, and the change there is when making a move between the two, this does feel like a step into the unknown for all concerned.

On the basis of recent history, those of a Rovers persuasion know that such a deal can therefore very much end up going one way or another.

Blackburn need their latest goalkeeper signing to be a success

The signing of Toth is, of course, not the first time in the last few years that the Ewood Park club have headed into the European market to sign a new goalkeeper.

Back in the summer of 2020, the club moved to sign Thomas Kaminski from Gent in his native Belgium, in a bid to fill their goalkeeping void.

That proved to be an immensely successful move, with the Belgian winning Blackburn's Player of the Year award in his first season with the club.

Kaminski remained a popular and reliable figure between the posts for three years in the Championship with Rovers.

Indeed, his performances were enough to earn him a move to the Premier League with newly-promoted Luton Town last summer, highlighting just how good he had been at Ewood Park.

With Blackburn left in need of a replacement for Kaminski, they again headed into the European market, this time signing one-time Sweden international Leo Wahlstedt from Norwegian side Odd.

Unlike his predecessor from the continent though, that is not a deal that worked out for Blackburn last season.

Wahlstedt made a string of costly errors over the course of the campaign that did not help the club in their battle to avoid the drop.

As a result, he was, of course, sold earlier this summer, returning to Scandinavia with a move to Danish side Aarhus.

It was that which forced Blackburn to head into the window again to bring in Toth from Hungary, to give them the senior depth they needed in the goalkeeping department.

With Toth, like his aforementioned predecessors here, also coming into the club from a similarly unfamiliar league, there is a chance this could go any which way.

While Kaminski showed how such deals can be a success, Wahlstedt proved there is also the chance for them to backfire, and Toth is in a similar situation.

As a result, it does feel as though it will only be once the Hungarian is in action on the pitch that Blackburn will know for certain if they have made the right signing here.

Given the frustration around Wahlstedt last season, and the fact that their other senior option between the posts, Aynsley Pears, is also susceptible to an error, they surely need this to work.

If it doesn't, then with how significant errors made by goalkeepers can be, it could threaten to undermine what has been a promising start to the season for John Eustace's side.

So far, the stats and reports from Hungary on Toth have at least been promising, and Blackburn must hope that proves to be the case on the pitch, so this can be considered a repeat of the Kaminski deal everyone at the club will want, rather than the Wahlstedt one.