Spurs ready to pile on woe for beleaguered Kean

23 October 2011 09:49

Blackburn supporters are expected to hold another protest calling for Steve Kean to be sacked when his team face Tottenham in their Premier League clash at Ewood Park on Sunday.

It will be the third home match in a row where Rovers fans have demonstrated, although one of those fixtures resulted in a victory against Arsenal.

This time they are facing a Spurs side unbeaten in nine matches and looking for a fifth consecutive win over Rovers.

Harry Redknapp's team also rested key players for their European fixture during the week as qualifying for the Champions League remains the priority.

"In the league we want to try our best to get back in the Champions League this year," Redknapp said. "That's very important to us.

"We still want to win in Europa League and play some younger players. They have an opportunity to show what they can do."

Spurs defeated Rubin Kazan in the Europa League on Thursday but did not need the likes of Emmanuel Adebayor or Gareth Bale against the Russians.

Redknapp, however, has injury problems in defence and will be missing William Gallas, Ledley King, Michael Dawson and Vedran Corluka.

It means Sebastien Bassong should keep his place but the Cameroon centre-back is still considering a move away from White Hart Lane as he wants regular football when everyone is fit.

"I'm interested in everything," the former FC Metz defender said. "I'm not going to say 'No, I'm not interested in anyone who's coming for me'.

"First of all, I want to play for Spurs. When I'm playing here, I'm happy. Then, if I'm not playing enough, then we're going to think about something else.

"Has not playing often been difficult? Yes, of course. I'm human - I have feelings and emotions."

Kean is expecting Redknapp to restore his full-strength team as Spurs look to break into the top four of the Premier League.

"I will expect a much stronger team," the Scot said. "I've got a good idea of what they're going to go with and we've been working hard all week to prepare for that.

"They've got goals and people to score. We have to stop the service that they have.

"I think what we've done is look at every game in isolation. We've looked at all clubs and set a target for what we want from them.

"Last year's performance against Tottenham here was one of our best performances, maybe not the result."

Rovers are looking to build on last week's draw against QPR, which was a big improvement on the heavy defeats to Manchester City and Newcastle.

But they are still bottom of the table with just five points this season.

"You can look back to Everton where we missed two penalties," Kean said. "If we had got a point against Wolves. But you can?t add those points, you have to look to make them up. Now we've got a bit of momentum from the QPR game now."

After having his management questioned by fans, Kean added: "I've always had a good relationship with the players. The lads like hard work when they don?t get a result. They want to work out the problems."

Kean has Michel Salgado (hamstring), David Dunn (calf), Ryan Nelsen (Knee), Vince Grella (hip) all sidelined.

Source: AFP