Why Blackburn Rovers fans will love what Andri Gudjohnsen did against France - Kylian Mbappe won't | OneFootball

New Blackburn Rovers signing Andri Gudjohnsen found the back of the net for Iceland against a star-studded France side on Tuesday evening

Blackburn Rovers supporters will have been keeping one eye on how their players have fared on international duty, with a number of Valerien Ismael's troops having received call-ups for the current break.

In many ways, this month's international break has offered a welcome distraction from reality for the Ewood Park faithful, who have grown increasingly disillusioned with the club's direction of travel and management under the controversial ownership of the Venky's, and are witnessing an abject, albeit not unexpected, start to the 2025/26 Championship campaign.

Blackburn proved something of a surprise package last season where, having lost once-popular manager John Eustace to strugglers Derby County, they bounced back to launch a late, and ultimately unsuccessful, push to finish inside the Championship's top-six. They finished in seventh, just one place and two points shy of sixth-placed Bristol City, but replicating a similar feat appears a tall order for Ismael following a difficult summer transfer window in East Lancashire.

Much of Blackburn's summer recruitment took place on the continent, with just three of the club's ten acquisitions sourced domestically. The real concern, of course, is the sheer degree of outgoings — long-serving mainstays such as Callum Brittain, John Buckley, Tyrhys Dolan, Dominic Hyam and Joe Rankin-Costello have all moved on, while Andi Weimann and Danny Batth both sought to reunite with Eustace at Derby.

Blackburn have started the new season in less-than-ideal fashion, losing three of their opening four encounters and crashing out of the EFL Cup to League One outfit Bradford City. That's exactly why the international break will be providing distraction and escape, but it could just offer up some excitement through recent signing Andri Gudjohnsen.

Andri Gudjohnsen's exploits against France will have Blackburn Rovers on alert

Gudjohnsen, son of former Barcelona and Chelsea forward Eidur Gudjohnsen, signed for Blackburn from Belgian side Gent at the end of the previous month, putting pen to paper on a three-year contract.

For now, at least, he remains a largely-unknown quantity to the majority of Blackburn supporters and is awaiting his debut for Rovers, which will likely come in Saturday's trip to Watford, although they saw a glimpse of what the Icelandic international is all about during Tuesday evening's defeat against France.

Gudjohnsen, who has earned 36 caps for Iceland after making his debut back in 2021, scored his 10th goal for his nation as they fell to a narrow 2-1 defeat at the hands of Didier Deschamps' France in their second World Cup Qualifying fixture.

The 23-year-old was ultimately powerless to prevent defeat as Kylian Mbappe and Bradley Barcola both found the back of the net to hand France a 2-1 victory.

But Iceland found themselves in the ascendancy after 21 minutes courtesy of Gudjohnsen, who capitalised on a calamitous pass from Bayern Munich sensation Michael Olise inside the French penalty box to poke his first-time finish past a helpless Mike Maignan.

Indeed, Gudjohsen even looked to have notched an equaliser in the 90th minute, only to see what would have been his second goal of the evening ruled out after VAR identified a shirt pull on Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konate.

Nonetheless, to have technically found the back of the net on two occasions against one of the international game's top dogs in France — even if Olise most certainly helped with Iceland's opening — is no mean feat and Blackburn may be excited about what Gudjohnsen can conjure up in the Championship.

France's litany of stars, meanwhile, from Barcola, Mbappe and Olise to Konate, Jules Kounde and Theo Hernandez, will be relieved to now see the back of Gudjohnsen.

He proved a constant threat all evening as they could only claim a slender triumph over Iceland, and it will be interesting to see whether the forward can translate that level of performance to the Championship.

Andri Gudjohnsen has joined Blackburn Rovers with mixed track record

Gudjohsen, who was born in London and impressively made his way through the ranks with both Barcelona and Real Madrid before making a name for himself in Scandinavia, has joined Blackburn with a rather mixed record.

The striker's career really took off during the 2023/24 campaign with Danish top-flight outfit Lyngby, for whom he scored 13 goals from 28 league appearances in his only season before joining Gent last summer.

Gudjohnsen's time in Belgium was, all things considered, rather forgettable as he returned just five strikes from 32 divisional outings — 16 of which were starts — while he also failed to score in 13 UEFA Europa Conference League fixtures.

His last two seasons have been a complete contrast with each eachother, but it will be hoped that he can find the consistency to prove a goalscoring force for a side who are going to be in sore need of exactly that this term.