Kean hopes hard work pays off for Rovers

Blackburn Rovers manager Steve Kean cancelled his players’ day off this week in a bid to halt his side’s bad run ahead of their match at Fulham on Saturday.

Blackburn have lost four of their past six Premier League games including a comprehensive 4-1 defeat at Aston Villa last week and Kean knows they desperately need to create more goal-scoring opportunities.

“We have got to make sure we get service to the front men and make sure we can dictate play. That has been one of the disappointing aspects of recent weeks; we have not had enough service to the front unit. We have been working to fix that,” he said.

“We had a good meeting with the players on Tuesday afternoon and we watched certain aspects of the game against Aston Villa. We’ve worked on that all week and the mood is good.”

The players have been forced to forego their usual Wednesday day off in order to get in an extra day’s preparation for the Craven Cottage showdown.

With new club owners Venky’s expecting great things from the Lancashire club, the manager will be trying everything he can to improve on the club’s current 14th position in the Premier League table.

“We’ve had a long week; normally we train very hard on a Tuesday and I give them the Wednesday off but we’ve been in all week. They have put in a lot of hard work on the training ground so hopefully we will see the rewards on Saturday,” Kean said.

“This match is an opportunity for us to bounce back. Fulham are in decent form so we know it will be a tough game.”

Blackburn will be without David Dunne (hip), Mauro Formica (fitness) and Phil Jones (knee). Junior Hoilett (hamstring) and Roque Santa Cruz (back) are both doubtful.