ROY Hodgson is quietly building a championship challenge at Ewood Park - and he aims to have fun doing it!

Just 12 months this week, Blackburn Rovers were rock bottom of the Premiership with four points from 11 games and in total disarray.

After Saturday's 1-0 win over Southampton, Hodgson has now steered the club into second place and has already dismissed all thoughts of another relegation scrap.

The manager, in fact, is positive but realistic about the whole situation.

"There are teams who will be rivals to win the championship who have a lot of experience," he said.

"That will be the fun of the job, trying to keep things going and trying to stay up there.

"Our aim was to have a much better year than last season and not to find ourselves in relegation trouble.

"We have achieved that and the secondary objective will be to try to get back into European football. To do that, we have to keep in the top six.

"So far, the team has been consistent. We have had our share of injuries, yet seem to have got over them, so we are coming back to much more of a full-strength squad.

"I see that as being very positive. I see the fact that we are not losing many games as being very positive.

"I thought the team played some confident football in patches of the game.

"We weren't able to do it throughout the 90 minutes but I don't think many teams I have seen could do what we were doing in patches for the whole 90 minutes. "Having said that, there's a lot of work still left to do."

There were special words of praise from the manager for Chris Sutton and Damien Duff.

"Chris Sutton had a marvellous game but I thought there were a lot of very good performances from our players," he said.

"I thought Damien Duff was very exciting too. For an 18-year-old to come in and take that responsibility was very good. I was delighted with him and I have seen him even more exhilerating than he was on Saturday.

"There was only one result that interested us and that was victory.

"I would even have been delighted had we played badly and won with a penalty that never was.

"As it is we have a team that's done well enough and deserved to win, so that makes me even happier.

"There were also some rewarding moments which builds on the impression I had after the Chelsea game, that we are moving in the right direction."

A goal from David Dunn gave Rovers A a 1-1 draw away to Manchester United. The B team drew 1-1 at home to Oldham, Chris Whittle scoring.

Tony Parkes received a special award from the Football Writers' Association (North West) in Manchester last night to mark his achievements as caretaker-manager last season.

Rovers' LFA Youth Cup second round tie against Blackpool,scheduled for Ewood on Wednesday, has been postponed through international commitments.

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