Blackburn manager, Steve Kean, told ESPNsoccernet: “Yes, I can confirm we are interested.”

Since being taken over by Venky’s last Autumn, Rovers have been searching for a big name to add to their ranks. The former Manchester United striker has now been confirmed as their next target.

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Blackpool midfielder Charlie Adam takes his place in midfield alongside Aston Villa youngster Barry Bannan. Manager Levein will be hoping for a morale boosting victory against the Brazilians.

The full Scotland squad:

Goalkeepers: Allan McGregor (Rangers), Craig Gordon (Sunderland/ENG), Iain Turner (Everton/ENG)
Defenders: Phil Bardsley (Sunderland/ENG), Christophe Berra (Wolverhampton Wanderers/ENG), Gary Caldwell (Wigan Athletic/ENG), Stephen Crainey (Blackpool/ENG), Grant Hanley (Blackburn Rovers/ENG), Alan Hutton (Tottenham Hotspur/ENG), Steven Whittaker (Rangers), Danny Wilson (Liverpool/ENG), Mark Wilson (Celtic)
Midfielders: Charlie Adam (Blackpool/ENG), Barry Bannan (Aston Villa/ENG), Scott Brown (Celtic), Kris Commons (Celtic), Don Cowie (Watford/ENG), Murray Davidson (St Johnstone), James McArthur (Wigan Athletic/ENG), James Morrison (West Bromwich Albion/ENG), Robert Snodgrass (Leeds United/ENG)
Forwards: James Maguire (Aberdeen), Kenny Miller (Bursaspor/TUR), Steven Naismith (Rangers)

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Locked together on 32 points, the winner of the game may well go into the top half of the premier league, whereas the losers will be looking nervously over their shoulders at the relegation zone.

Fulham have drawn their last three league games, but will be encouraged as two of those were aginst Manchester City and Chelsea.

Blackburn, on the other hand, were thumped 4-1 by Aston Villa in their last match, and havn’t won a game in their last five.

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The match takes place at Craven Cottage on Saturday March 5th, kick off 15.00.

- If Liverpool could match their away form to that of at Anfield they would not be battling to get the fourth Champions League spot.

- Blackburn’s away form must be fairly shocking as they are nowhere near challenging for Europe, let alone the top four.

Liverpool’s season has been covered in great detail elsewhere, but Allardyce’s positive spin on things has been rather less scrutinised. In fact, Blackburn would be in 18th position if away form was all that mattered. Having picked up a paltry six points on their travels from Ewood Park, it would be the understatement of the century to say that much can be improved.

However, Saturday April 3rd 2010 offers a fabulous opportunity to pick up only a second away win of the season. Blackburn will take on Portsmouth at Fratton Park, and although the Hampshire side are showing a great deal of heart in their matches, even without the 9 point penalty for going into administration Portsmouth would be bottom of the league. In the reverse fixture, Blackburn completed a convincing 3-1 victory despite going behind in the 15th minute to a Jamie O’Hara goal.

Last night Portsmouth lost 5-0 at home to Chelsea. While Blackburn are not of the calibre of Carlo Ancelotti’s team, it is another low point for Pompey in a miserable season, and heads inevitably tend to drop – especially after such a drubbing. Blackburn beat notoriously difficult to break down Birmingham City 2-1, thanks to a brace from David Dunn, and this result coupled with a good value draw against Chelsea stands them in good stead for the visit to Pompey. With their last and only other away victory coming in November against the struggling Bolton Wanderers of Gary Megson (who has since been sacked), there will not be a better opportunity for Blackburn to overcome their away demons.

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Chelsea play host to Everton at Stamford Bridge on Saturday as they bid to return to winning ways.

After a hugely impressive display at the Emirates Stadium a fortnight ago – when they brushed aside the challenge of Arsenal to record a thumping 3-0 win – the Blues have stuttered somewhat.

A penalty shootout elimination in the Carling Cup at the hands of Blackburn Rovers was then followed by a controversial defeat at Manchester City. A presumed walkover against Cypriot minnows APOEL Nicosia in their final group game in the Champions League proved to be anything but as the visitors stunned a packed Stamford Bridge with a late equaliser.

To add to Chelsea’s annoyance, the express train that is Michael Essien suffered a hamstring injury just after scoring in that match and will not feature for Carlo Ancelotti’s team until his national team, Ghana, have completed their Africa Cup of Nations campaign with the final being on January 31st.

Everton have had a torrid time with injuries this season and results have not been kind as a consequence.

The Toffees find themselves 15th in the Barclays Premier League table though they would have been even lower had goalkeeper Tim Howard not saved a Jermain Defoe spot-kick in injury time during their 2-2 draw with Tottenham last weekend.

The visitors will be missing the talismanic Tim Cahill due to suspension while Mikel Arteta and Phil Jagielka are still on the long-term injury list.

Expect Chelsea to rediscover that winning feeling but a David Moyes side never lacks for spirit and workrate to which two goalless draws against their west London opponents last season testifies.

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While seeded teams such as Brazil and Germany have been placed in taxing groups for the FIFA World Cup, the same cannot be said about Italy.

The reigning world champions and their manager Marcello Lippi must have punched the air once the draw for Group F was concluded with their passage to the knockout stages  – force majeur notwithstanding – all but guaranteed. Having gone unbeaten throughout their qualifying campaign despite being pushed all the way by Ireland, they will have to navigate past Paraguay, New Zealand and Slovakia to book their place in the second round and it would take a brave man to bet against that happening.

Slovakia though will be no pushovers. On the road to South Africa they topped their group ahead of fellow World Cup qualifiers Slovenia, forcing the Czech Republic to watch the tournament from the sofa. They will field Liverpool’s Martin Skrtel in central defence while Napoli’s Marek Hamsik will be putting himself in the shop window with a number of high profile European clubs having already registered an interest in acquiring his services.

Paraguay qualified in impressive style by collecting a record haul of points from their 18 matches. They still only finished third in the oversized CONMEBOL group but they did clinch their place in South Africa by beating Diego Maradona’s Argentina. They found themselves in England’s group in Germany 2006 and failed to make it to the second round. If Manchester City striker Roque Santa Cruz can get some playing time under his belt before the World Cup they might feel that they have a good chance of improving on that.

New Zealand have made it to their first World Cup finals since 1982 and that itself is a reason for celebration. The All Whites took advantage of Australia’s decision to defect to the Asia qualifying zone and booked their passage with a nervy 1-0 aggregate victory over Bahrain in a trans-federation playoff for the final place in South Africa. Nothing is expected of them except to show commitment in each of their games and they will rely on Blackburn’s Ryan Nelsen to provide the experience that they will need to compete. It’s certainly one of football’s more romantic stories but don’t expect the dream to continue into the second round.

Prediction: Italy to stroll through with Paraguay edging into second place.

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Mark Hughes must feel like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders following the midweek Carling Cup win over Arsenal, even if Arsene Wenger did field a weakened side.

The timing was also perfect considering Manchester City now host leaders Chelsea, who appear unstoppable right now despite their shock slip-up at Blackburn in midweek.

Despite dropping points on a worryingly consistent basis, City have not lost too much ground on those immediately above them.

While winning the title itself appears unlikely now, a win over Carlo Ancelotti’s men could see City return to the top four should other results go in their favour.

The incentive is there and this should provide Hughes with ample evidence of where his side stand when it comes to being compared against the very best.

Hughes said: “We get judged by the amount of money we have spent but you just have to look back at where we were this time 12 months ago and the fact we were flirting with relegation.

“We have invested wisely and we are progressing. We are two points off where I thought we would be at this stage, so I’m pleased.

“We’ve got to keep that focus and intensity, but we are not a million miles away from where we should be. But Chelsea are the team to beat, without a shadow of a doubt. They are rock solid defensively and always have a real goalscoring threat.

City need to wise up to the fact Chelsea will be smarting from being knocked out of the Carling Cup. Hughes could do worse than adopt a containing policy to start with and look to utilise the quicksilver pace of Craig Bellamy and Shaun Wright-Phillips to hit Chelsea on the break. The form of this pair, along with Stephen Ireland’s ability to break from midfield, will go a long way towards deciding City’s fate.

Martin Petrov is still out with a knee problem, while Gareth Barry is also a doubt after suffering a recurrence of a nagging knee problem.

A clean sweep of trophies was never really on for Chelsea but the midweek Carling Cup quarter final defeat to Blackburn Rovers will continue to rankle as an opportunity missed for some time and Carlo Ancelotti will be looking for an appropriate response from his team to that failure.

Ancelotti insisted after the game that his priority this week had always been the visit to Eastlands after Chelsea had put down such an impressive marker in the title race with last weekend’s emphatic 3-0 victory at Arsenal.

“No defeat is good,” said the manager. “But the priority of that game was to give minutes to the players who didn’t play against Arsenal. Also it was chance for our other players to recover so tomorrow we have a fresh team.”

“Manchester City are dangerous and have plenty of quality. They haven’t won the last seven and they will want to beat Chelsea. I think they are good enough to reach the top four because they have a good squad.”

Ancelotti rested Petr Cech, John Terry and Frank Lampard at Blackburn while Didier Drogba started on the bench. The plan to field an under-strength side might have worked if the Italian hadn’t used all three of his substitutions at half time.

The coach is unlikely to be so cavalier this weekend and all his big names will start as Chelsea attempt to claim their ninth successive victory against City.

Ashley Cole returns after a hamstring injury but Kalou faces a three-week absence after tearing a thigh muscle and joins Alex (hip) Jose Bosingwa (knee) and Daniel Sturridge (knee) on the sidelines.

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Blackburn qualified for the semi-finals of the Carling Cup after a dramatic penalty shootout victory over the Barclays Premier League leaders Chelsea.

Paul Robinson was the hero after he saved spot-kicks from the usually deadly Michael Ballack and controversial teenage star Gael Kakuta to book a place in the last four for the Lancashire side.

A thrilling cup tie at Ewood Park began with Nikola Kalinic opening the scoring for the home side after just nine minutes against a Chelsea line-up shorn of the likes of John Terry, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba, Ashley Cole and Ricardo Carvalho with a total of eight changes made from the side that won at Arsenal.

A reshuffle at half-time saw Blues manager Carlo Ancelotti make three substitutions bringing on Drogba, Kakuta and centre back Jeffrey Bruma. The changes paid immediate dividends as Drogba and Salomon Kalou made the scoreline 2-1 in the visitors favour within eight minutes of the restart.

Brett Emerton brought the scores level on 64 minutes before Chelsea were reduced to ten men when Kalou left the field injured with his manager having already made all three permitted substitutions.

Extra-time started perfectly for Blackburn with Benni Mccarthy slotting home past Hilario from the penalty spot to give Rovers a 3-2 lead and it seemed to be enough until Paulo Ferreira scored only his second Chelsea goal in over five years at the club with the last kick of the game to take the tie to penalties.

The unflappable Ballack saw his attempt saved by Robinson before Hilario saved from Kalinic to erase any advantage. As the shootout entered sudden death, Kakuta elected to smash the ball down the middle but Robinson – who had dived to his left for all the previous spot-kicks -elected to stay still and saved from the young Frenchman to send Ewood Park into delirium and Blackburn into the next round.

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Fulham are beginning to carve out a reputation for themselves at Craven Cottage, where their victory over Liverpool was followed by a comfortable three-point haul against Blackburn on Wednesday night.

The result moved Roy Hodgson’s side up to 10th in the Premier League and they are on course for another top-half finish. No wonder then that the club’s board of directors are so keen to offer him a new contract.

Hodgson told a news conference: “I spoke to the chairman and it’s not been a difficult discussion. It seems everyone is keen for me to stay and I’ve always made it perfectly clear I’m happy to stay here.

“I’ve never made any secret of the fact I’m enjoying my time here. It’s just a question now of putting the contract discussions onto paper. The club’s lawyers are looking at it and I’ll get someone to look at it from my side.”

The win over Blackburn was a perfect example of Fulham’s strength – soaking up the pressure and then hitting teams on the counter attack. Erik Nevland’s goal in the 44th minute proved to be a sucker-punch for the visitors.

The Norwegian is likely to start again here and his intelligent forward play – along with the impressive Clint Dempsey – provides Fulham with the ability to unlock defences. Brede Hangeland and Aaron Hughes should be experienced enough to cope with Bolton’s Kevin Davies, yet fellow defender Paul Konchesky will hope for a better performance this weekend.

Bobby Zamora limped off during Wednesday’s win and is a doubt. Fellow striker Andy Johnson has recovered from a groin strain and could feature after playing for the reserves, although he is likely to be handed a place on the bench. Midfielder and captain Danny Murphy is also back in contention following his knee problem and could replace Jonathan Greening. USA international Dempsey is expected to keep his place in the starting line-up after his two goals in midweek.

As for the visitors, Gary Megson’s side dropped into the relegation zone last weekend and the Bolton manager knows that an extension of the run that has seen them lose four straight games while conceding 15 goals could see them cut adrift even at this early stage.

After doing some solid transfer business in the summer, Megson was entitled to expect better than this and the recent slump has opened old wounds in his uneasy relationship with the supporters.

But the manager has reiterated that he is not worried about the taunts of his own supporters. “I’ve been dealing with this for two years,” he said. “I’ve been getting sacked every morning, I haven’t known what I was doing since I’ve been here. I’ve kept his club up twice and we’re one of the lowest spenders in the division.”

Tightening up at the back is a must and, although a win would be ideal, a first Premier League clean sheet of the season would be a major boost for confidence. Megson will also want to see a little more graft from his team, who he claims have not matched their usual high energy levels in recent weeks. After starting with two strikers in the 2-0 defeat against Blackburn, Johan Elmander may have to make way for another midfielder, with Kevin Davies on his own up front

Megson is hoping that Tamir Cohen and Ricardo Gardner overcome injuries to feature at Craven Cottage. Joey O’Brien is out long-term and Sean Davis looks likely to miss the rest of the season with a knee injury.

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