BIRTHDAY boy David Dunn is hoping to have double cause for celebration tonight as he aims to shoot down the man who gave him his only senior England cap.

The Blackburn Rovers midfielder, who turned 28 today, says he will always be indebted to Sven Goran Eriksson after it was the Swede who drafted him into the England squad for a friendly with Portugal at Villa Park in 2002.

Sadly for Dunn, that was the only time he ever represented his country at full international level, after a succession of injuries curtailed his hopes of becoming an England regular.

However, as he prepares to face Eriksson's Manchester City side at Eastlands tonight, Dunn says he's pleased to see the former England chief confounding his critics as a Premier League manager.

"Sven is doing a great job for Manchester City," said the Rovers midfielder.

"He had quite a few critics when he left the England job, but since he's got back in the game, he's done a great job at City, and a lot of those critics are now having to eat their words.

"A lot of people were expecting him to fall flat on his face when he went there, but I think he's shown what a good manager he is.

"A lot of the top managers do their best work when they are under pressure, and I certainly think that's the case with Sven."

Despite leading England to three successive quarter-finals at major international tournaments, Eriksson's spell in charge of the national team was still considered to be an expensive failure in many quarters, because a squad of players hailed as the Golden Generation' ultimately failed to live up to expectations.

Yet, speak to Dunn about the pragmatic Swede and he only has positive things to say about the man who gave him his big chance at full international level.

"I was grateful to Sven back then for giving me the chance," said the former England Under 21s captain.

"It was just disappointing I didn't get more opportunities, because I don't want to be seen as a one-cap wonder."

Aside from playing in that game against Portugal, Dunn was also put on stand-by by Eriksson ahead of the World Cup finals in 2002.

And having seen how he handled the pressure cooker atmosphere of the England job at first hand, Dunn is not surprised to see Eriksson flourishing again now as a club boss.

"He's quite a quiet guy, to be honest," said Dunn.

"Obviously, during his time with England, he had a lot of the English coaches around him, who did most of the day-to-day stuff.

"But he seemed to be a good man-manager and that's probably the most important quality you need as an international manager.

"To be honest, I didn't really have too much contact with him; I was only in the squad for one game so I was only there for a couple of days.

"But he came and watched me play quite a bit and whenever I spoke to him, he seemed a pleasant guy."

As the only coach to have ever won the league and cup double in three different countries (Sweden, Portugal and Italy), Eriksson is now enhancing his reputation as an accomplished club manager with City, who are riding high in fourth position in the Premiership, and boast an enviable home record of nine straight wins in the league.

However, Dunn remains confident Rovers can burst Eriksson's bubble at Eastlands tonight, thus ensuring his birthday celebrations go with a swing.

He added: "This is an important period for us. I think our next three games - against City, Derby and Sunderland - are all winnable, and if we play anything like we did against Chelsea on Sunday, then we've got an excellent chance of getting something from them.

"We've just got to get the first goal in a game because we always seem to be going behind at the moment."