Dunn puts Allardyce in good heart

TONICS do not come much stronger than this. A first away win of the season for Blackburn — and at his former club, too — gave Sam Allardyce a timely lift as he prepared for heart surgery this week.

Allardyce is scheduled to undergo an angioplasty, a procedure to widen one of his coronary arteries, on Friday and was forced to miss the derby against the club he played for and managed.

His team did him proud, though, with influential midfielder David Dunn capping a superb performance by making the breakthrough before Bolton’s Sam Ricketts scored a bizarre own goal in the second half.