This article is part of Football League World's 'Player View' series, this content strand is where we put ourselves in the shoes of a given player and offer an opinion-based outlook on the situation at hand…

Saturday 5th May 2018. At the end of a long, hard season, Blackburn Rovers are able to saviour their moment of glory and adulation in front a nigh on capacity crowd at Ewood Park, having just brought the curtain down on season that saw them secure promotion back to the Championship after just a single campaign in League One.

Among them is Richie Smallwood. The central midfielder - signed at the start of that season from Rotherham United - has just featured in every single one of those 46 league games to help bring about an end to Blackburn's brief stay in the third tier of English football, winning the club's 'Newcomer of the Year' award in the process.

The fact that is blurred somewhat by the fact that another player making his Blackburn debut that season, Bradley Dack, has just been named the club's Player of the Year, is unlikely to be any concern to either of them, or indeed anyone concerned with the football club.

At that point, you feel that no one, let alone Smallwood himself, could have imagined the midfielder winding up in the situation that he currently finds himself in.

Having continued to be an almost ever-present during the in the early months of Blackburn's first season back in the Championship, as Tony Mowbray's established a comfortable foundation on which to build, Smallwood's place in the side still seemed reasonably comfortable.

Then, a loose challenge with the scores locked at 0-0 Bramall Lane against ten-man Sheffield United late last December saw Smallwood dismissed, levelling the numbers up at ten aside in a game the Blades would go onto win 3-0.

In the aftermath of that defeat, Smallwood's subsequent suspension handed the then 21-year-old Lewis Travis a chance in the Rovers side that he has never really looked back from, with the academy graduate establishing himself as a mainstay of the Blackburn starting XI.

As a result, Smallwood himself has started just six of the 35 league games since his red card at Bramall Lane, none of which have come since the start of the current campaign.

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Indeed, Smallwood has only even made it into a matchday squad once in the league this season, with the midfielder now having been forced to settle for a string of recent starts for the club's under 23s side in order to earn some game time and gain some match fitness.

For a player who is now 28-years-old, and who has well over 300 senior appearances to his name, that drop into the academy side is going to be tough to take, and you feel that in Smallwood's case, it is also going to send an ominous warning about his future.

Worryingly for the midfielder, Smallwood's contract with Blackburn is set to expire at the end of the current season, and it doesn't seem as though he is going to get much chance to do anything to change that.

The fact that he finds himself in Rovers' under 23s side, at a time when manager Tony Mowbray is scrambling for ideas to end a run of six games without a win for the first-team, seems to imply that the Blackburn boss has already made up his mind that Smallwood is not the answer to those problems.

Consequentially, with Rovers - like any other side - likely to want to strengthen their squad even further in both January and summer when Smallwood's deal expires, it is only going to get more and more difficult for the midfielder to force his way back into the starting lineup.

It seems therefore, that regardless of how much he has enjoyed his time at Blackburn, or how much he may want to stay at the club, Smallwood may need to start thinking about his own plans elsewhere for the summer, with his time at Ewood Park now seemingly drawing to an end.

Having been such a big part of Blackburn's promotion success from League One less than a year and a half ago, there can be no doubt that Smallwood still has the potential to make an impact at that level.

With things long since having turned against him at Blackburn, it may soon be time for him to let another side benefit from those abilities, so that Smallwood too, can benefit himself, from a return to first-team football that after so long on the sidelines, he will surely be desperate to enjoy.