Blackburn Rovers: Record of 2012 signing will never make sense to Ewood Park faithful - View | OneFootball

One striker enjoyed a remarkable turnaround after a disastrous stint in Lancashire

The 2011/12 season is one that supporters of Blackburn Rovers will not remember at all fondly.

After 11 seasons in the Premier League, during which time they enjoyed some memorable cup runs and European qualifications, Rovers suffered relegation in a deeply disappointing campaign.

That came amid a raft of protests against the running of the club by both the first-team management at the time, and owners Venkys, with neither party taking action to endear themselves to the fans.

However, there were a number of members of the first-team squad at Ewood Park that season who failed to make the required contribution either, and one of those was Anthony Modeste.

Bordeaux loanee had a nightmare at Ewood Park

After a poor first half of the season in which the troubles faced by Blackburn both on and off the pitch had already become clear, the club needed recruits in the 2012 January transfer window.

It was hoped that signings would be able to help lift the club out of the bottom three, and Modeste was one of those brought in to try and help with that.

The then 23-year-old arrived at Ewood Park on loan from Bordeaux until the end of the season, after previously scoring 15 goals in 58 appearances in all competitions for the French top-flight side.

However, the centre-forward never got close to making any sort of impact in front of goal during his time with Blackburn.

Instead, the young striker often looked out of his depth, failing to ever really get close to finding the back of the net.

As it was, Modeste's most notable action in a Rovers shirt came when he was sent off for kicking out at Billy Jones late on in a 3-0 defeat to West Brom in April 2012, compounding the misery of that trip to The Hawthorns.

Indeed, with the striker failing to make an impact, he featured in just nine of the 17 games Blackburn played after his arrival, ending the campaign with one red card, and no goals or assists for the club, as their relegation from the Premier League was indeed confirmed.

It was therefore no surprise that a permanent move to Ewood Park was never hinted at for Modeste, although the way the striker's career went after his ill-fated loan spell in Lancashire, was much more surprising.

Anthony Modeste became prolific after his Blackburn exit

While things did not work out for him in the Premier League, there would be much more individual success after the end of that spell for the striker.

Following the end of his loan spell with Blackburn, the summer of 2012 saw him loaned out by Bordeaux to another French top-flight, Bastia, for the 2012/13 campaign.

That was a much more effective stint for Modeste, who scored 17 goals and provided five assists in 38 appearances for the club, as they finished 12th in the French top-flight.

His form there was enough to earn the striker a permanent move to Germany, where he continued to fire at top-flight level, in a way he had failed to do at Blackburn.

Over the next two seasons, Modeste scored a respectable total of 23 goals in 62 appearances for Hoffenheim, which then earned him a move to Bundesliga rivals Cologne.

There, the striker well and truly found form to make Rovers fans wonder what if, scoring 18 goals in his debut campaign with the club, following that up by hitting the net an even more impressive 27 times the season after.

In the wake of that, Modeste then secured a big money move to Chinese side Tianjin Guanjian in the summer of 2017, signing a two-year loan deal for a reported €6million, with an option to buy for a further €29million.

Given how he had performed at Ewood Park, you can be fairly certain no Blackburn fan ever imagined the striker being associated with such sizable fees.

After scoring a further 16 goals in 29 games in China, Modeste would force through a return to Cologne - who in his absence had been relegated - in November 2018, helping them return to the German top-flight in his first few months back at the club.

While the striker has never been prolific on quite as consistent a basis again, he did provide another reminder of what Rovers missed out on when he hit 23 goals during the 2021/22 season to help Cologne qualify for the Europa Conference League.

That also earned him a move to Borussia Dortmund, which did not exactly work out, and he is now playing for Egyptian giants Al Ahly, as he seemingly winds down his career at the age of 36.

When looking back at some significant portions of it, there is a good chance that many Blackburn fans will question how Modeste produced the goalscoring numbers he managed at times, after how badly things had gone for him, and them, while he was at Ewood Park.