While we continue to lick our double gameweek wounds, here’s some good news to add a little cheer to the frosty evening. Blackburn Rovers have confirmed that their Carling Cup Semi-Final first leg against Aston Villa has now been rescheduled for Thursday January 14th. To make this possible Blackburn’s fixture in gameweek 22 when they host Fulham, has been pushed back a day from the Saturday to Sunday January 17th but that makes little difference to us fantasy managers.

What does matter is that we can now breath a huge collective sigh of relief because unlike Manchester City and United, both Blackburn and Villa (and their opponents Wigan and Arsenal respectively) will be available to play their gameweek 23 fixtures…

This however will also have an effect on the amount of games both teams will now be participating in. In the three week spell between January 9th and 30th Aston Villa will now play 7 games across all competitions (with 4 being Premier League fixtures) so the threat of rotation will be looming large.

Equally, Blackburn Rovers now face a schedule as equally packed, with 4 games to be played in the space of a mere 10 days. And as already pointed out in Greek Fans excellent twitter service, Big Sam is making the Carling Cup Blackburn’s number one priority right now – so again, rotation looks a major concern.

As an aside, with regard to the previously mentioned Manchester derby game – we have had seen no word yet as to when their cancelled fixtures will be rescheduled, but as soon as we do – we’ll bring you the news and the fantasy ramifications.