ON Sunday, Blackburn Rovers make their first ever trip to the KC Stadium to face Hull City.

Both teams will play few more important matches this season.

Rovers’ predicament has been well known for some time.

Currently 18th in the table, they are now a worrying five points behind 16th-placed Tottenham.

On the face of it, the three relegation places look to be between Rovers, Stoke City, Middlesbrough and West Bromwich Albion.

Few have even considered Hull City as candidates for the drop since those crackpot autumn days when they collected 20 points from their first nine games following promotion.

The Tigers, incredibly, were joint top of the Premier League. There was hope for football yet.

Phil Brown was glowing amber with pride - or maybe that was just the tan - but lean times were to follow.

Since then, City have picked up just nine points from 19 games.

Even Brown’s eccentric half-time dressing down on the pitch at Manchester City failed to shake them back into life.

No team in the Premier League has lost more home games than Hull City.

The mighty Wigan Athletic emerged from the KC sunshine with a 5-0 victory, while Sunderland’s 4-1 away win was another result that only Weymouth could have regarded as respectable.

And perhaps we should not be so surprised because, while their early season form was a credit to English football, their line-up for Monday’s loss to Tottenham - Duke, Ricketts, Turner, Gardner, Dawson, Marney, Ashbee, Zayatte, Kilbane, Garcia and Cousin – appeared to be worryingly lacking in quality.

Their one class act, Geovanni, is currently in the middle of one of his enigmatic, ineffective periods.

Their big January signing, that cheeky chappy Jimmy Bullard, spent precisely 37 minutes on the pitch before laughing his way all the way to Colorado to see Dr Richard Steadman, who despite the wonders of modern science still seems to remain the only man in the world capable of performing a knee operation.

Indeed, Bullard's legendary banter meant it was probably the only operation in history in which even the surgeon was left in stitches.

If Rovers should lose on Sunday, expect the largest celebration Hull has seen since Dean Windass last found a pork pie down the back of his sofa.

Hull City’s safety would be almost assured and Rovers’ own Premier League status would be in great jeopardy.

But Blackburn have the quality to go to the KC Stadium and win.

What’s more, they will be under pressure to perform after making 11 changes for Tuesday’s FA Cup defeat at Coventry.

And, if Rovers do triumph, they would haul themselves to within three points of the Tigers and leave their opponents in real trouble.

With no obvious sign of a revival in form, Hull City would be on course to finish the season with around 35 points – a total that may well not be enough.

The welcome will be hostile, and the battle fierce on Sunday.

But an away win may just tip the scales irreversibly in Rovers’ favour.

* Can Rovers win at Hull and drag the Tigers into the relegation battle? Have your say by using the comment facility below.