SAM Allardyce played the 'derby' trump card today to wind his players up for tomorrow's Ewood Park showdown.

"There's one thing for sure, the place we can't lose our unbeaten record is Blackburn!" the Wanderers' boss stressed.

"For everybody concerned, from myself and the chairman downwards and especially the fans ... we've had four straight wins away from home, which is a fantastic achievement, and we hardly want to lose that record in a local derby."

Allardyce has happy memories of a previous Ewood encounter - the 1978 clash when Ian Greaves' Wanderers clinched promotion to the First Division ... at the third time of asking.

"Frank Worthington scored the goal and we finally won promotion after two near-misses," he recalls of that glorious Spring evening. "I remember there being a lot of tension because of those previous misses. But it was a great night."

Less memorable was Wanderers' most recent visit - last season's 3-1 defeat when they were undone by a trio of former stars.

"They had Nathan Blake, Jason McAteer and Per Frandsen ... and Nathan and Jason managed to score against us. We've got to make sure that doesn't happen tomorrow."

If Frandsen exerts the same influence as he did in that Ewood game last December, Wanderers should come away happy. Back at the Reebok after his brief career as a Rover, the Dane is growing in strength and starting to control events in the way he did in his previous three-season spell.

But Allardyce is not under-estimating the size of tomorrow's task. He has said repeatedly that, despite an unbeaten start, his team should only be judged against the "big-hitters" and ranks Rovers in that category. "I saw them on Tuesday against Portsmouth," he said admiringly after the 4-0 Worthington Cup win, "and at home they look a real force this year.

"We'll have our hands full.

"This month that's coming up will provide bigger tests for us than the last seven games. We have to play Blackburn, Fulham and Watford and they are the games when the depth of our squad and our talents will be really tested.

"But the team spirit and confidence has grown with the results we've been having."

Allardyce, who is gradually getting his injury-stricken squad looking something like, admits Wanderers aren't playing as fluently as they can. But as long as the strikers are doing their stuff, he won't complain.

"We're not as pretty but we're more effective than last year," he suggests. "We had to play very, very well last year to win football matches and this year we haven't had to play all that well because we have such effective strikers.

"We're not moving the ball as well as we can and we're not opening teams up as often as we would like but when we are creating chances, we are dynamite.

"Our conversion rate is probably one in goal every two chances, certainly no more than one in three. Not creating so many chances would be a little bit of a concern but it's not a worry considering the way we are finishing."