Blackburn Rovers Football Club News

• Nickname:Rovers
• Founded:1875
• Manager:Steve Kean

• Ground:Ewood Park
• Capacity:31,367

Rovers set to unleash Kalinic

17 Aug 2009 - 13:48:27

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Blackburn Rovers boss Sam Allardyce is preparing to unleash Nikola Kalinic on Gillingham in the Carling Cup before pitching the Croatia striker into Premier League action.

Allardyce paid £6million to bring the 21-year-old hitman to Ewood Park, but Kalinic did not receive his paperwork in time to be part of the squad which lost 2-0 to Manchester City on Saturday.

Rovers play Sunderland on Saturday but the striker is more likely to be given his first run-out against the League One club in the second round of the cup next week.

Speaking after Saturday's opening day defeat by City, Allardyce admitted he was concerned at his side's lack of cutting edge.

"If you are peppering the opposition's goal as much as we were then you would hope you score," he said.

"When you look at the shots we had you would want to convert at least one or two of them into goals.

"It wasn't our day in terms of converting those chances into goals. It was a really good response in terms of making chances.

"The sad thing was we didn't convert those chances into a goal and have ended up losing 2-0."