Hughes urges Rovers to end bad run with visit to City

BLACKBURN manager Mark Hughes is confident his side will emerge from their current slump — starting tonight at Manchester City.

Rovers head into the match at Eastlands on the back of a run that has seen them win one of their last eight Premier League fixtures, taking just five points in total.

Blackburn have slipped to 10th and are in danger of dropping into the bottom half of the table for the first time this season. “It’s just a question of us keeping on doing the right things, and it will turn around,” insisted Hughes.

“We are six or seven points better off than we were at this time last year, so we are still very much ahead of the game.

“So now we’re looking forward to facing Manchester City.”

Hughes takes on Sven-Goran Eriksson’s high-flying outfit without suspended duo Stephen Warnock and Robbie Savage, but centre-back Christopher Samba returns after serving his own one-match ban.

City’s England U-21 midfielder Michael Johnson has already been ruled out with an abdominal strain, so Geovanni could replace Gelson Fernandes in central midfield while Irish starlet Stephen Ireland returns from a three-match ban.

Vedran Corluka and Javier Garrido are also primed to face a Blackburn side who have won their last five games against City thought they are currently stuck in that rut.

Not that Eriksson is reading too much into the form book.

He has seen enough of Blackburn, and star forward Roque Santa Cruz, to know they will represent a major threat to his side’s impressive 100% home record.

Indeed, 11-goal Santa Cruz was one of the players the former England boss was eager to bring to City, only for Blackburn to snap him up for a bargain £3.5million (€4.7m) from Bayern Munich.

“Santa Cruz was on my radar but I was a bit too late,” he said.

“I saw him many times for Bayern and Paraguay. It is no surprise to me how well he has done because he is a very good player.

“He did well against Chelsea and when you look at the game overall, Blackburn were very unlucky to lose, so we know how tough it is going to be for us [tonight].”