BLACKBURN Rovers captain Scott Dann has challenged his side to maintain their momentum towards the play-offs with home victories over Sheffield Wednesday today – and Birmingham City on Sunday.

Resurgent Rovers are now just four points off the top six after they stretched their unbeaten run to three matches with a 1-0 win at Yeovil on Saturday.

Now Dann wants to close the gap further by taking maximum points against struggling Wednesday this afternoon and then against his former club Birmingham at the weekend.

The centre-back said: “Going into these two games we need to make sure we take maximum points and keep climbing the league.

“We want to keep pushing ourselves and setting ourselves fresh challenges.

“Given the run of games we’ve got coming up we’ve got to give it a really good go and try and put as many points on the board as possible.”

Dann, a £6m arrival from Birmingham in August 2011, made his 100th appearance for Rovers against Yeovil.

The 26-year-old was delighted to mark it with it as a win as Gary Bowyer’s improving side continued their upturn in form following their 3-1 defeat at Ipswich Town at the start of the month.

After that match Rovers boss Bowyer let his players know in no uncertain terms how unhappy he was with their second-half performance at Portman Road.

But his harsh words have certainly had the desired effect as since then Rovers have drawn at QPR and earned victories over Millwall and Yeovil to move up to 11th in the Championship.

Dann said: “He (Bowyer) didn’t need to say any words after the Ipswich game.

“He did, of course, but we knew we had performed below the standards we set ourselves.

“We gave the game away at Ipswich and we know when you come away from home in the Championship it’s going to be tough no matter who you’re playing against.

“So to get two clean sheets from the last two away games has been pleasing.

“Now we’ve got to keep that resilience going, especially away from home.

“We know we’ve got to grind games out if we are to get anywhere in this league.”

The shut out at Yeovil ensured Rovers kept consecutive clean sheets away from home for the first time since April 2010.

“It was the type of game that last year had we not have scored we might have ended up losing,” said Dann, a key part of the Rovers rearguard which has kept five clean sheets in the last eight matches.

He added: “We’ve got a different mentality throughout the squad this year.”