ITALIAN striker Ciccio Grabbi last night begged for the chance to prove he can still be a success in England after helping to fire Rovers into the fourth round of the FA Cup.

Graeme Souness's £6.75 million signing from Ternana scored for only the second time this season as Rovers crushed Barnsley 3-1 in their third round replay.

And, despite stories repeatedly linking him with a move back to Italy, the 26-year-old forward insists he wants to stay and fight for his place at Ewood.

"The last three months have been terrible for me but I now think the worst of it has past and I just want to get back to playing regularly again," said Grabbi.

"I don't know what the situation is regarding my future, whether I'll end up going back to Italy or staying here in England.

"So I need to speak with the people at the club to find out my position.

"But I don't have a problem with staying here and it's not true what was written in the Italian papers about me wanting to go back and play for Juventus.

"I was asked by a journalist if it was possible that I might go back to Italy and Juventus and I just said they are a big club because I played there for nine years, but that's where it stopped.

"I did not say I wanted to go back there or that I didn't like it here in England because that's not true."

Grabbi's neat finish in the 30th minute was his first goal for Rovers since he bagged the winner in a 1-0 win over Everton on September 22.

And he was quick to dedicate it to the fans after the vast majority have stood by him through some difficult times over the last four months.

"That goal was for the supporters," said Grabbi. "I just want to thank them for the way they have stayed behind me in all the time I've been here.

"I've been through some difficult times but now it feels better.

"I also want to say thank-you to two or three people in particular for helping me through it.

"Tugay has been a particularly good friend to me and so has Alan, the kit-man, and Alan Murray."

Whether or not Grabbi did enough to win a stay of execution remains to be seen as Rovers weigh up their options before the Italian transfer window closes at the end of the month.

But manager Graeme Souness was pleased to see him back on the scoresheet in what was his first full 90 minutes since joining the club in the summer.

"It was good to see him on the scoresheet again and he could have had more," said Souness.

"He had the chance for the goal and then there was another time when three of them all converged on the same ball.

"So he was unlucky not to get more than one tonight.

"But that was his first 90 minutes of the season and he looked a bit livelier."

As for the overall performance, Souness was delighted with his team's efforts as they cruised into a 3-0 lead inside the opening 50 minutes. But he was critical of the way some of his young players took their foot off the pedal in the last half hour.

"I was disappointed that Barnsley got a goal back because that spoilt it a bit," said Souness. "But we've come a long way in the last year. We won comfortably against a team who were eight or nine games unbeaten so that's a sign of our progress.

"We said 12 months ago we wanted to be in the Premier League and we knew that once we got in this league, we'd have some difficult times.

"But when you encounter difficult times that's when you show what you're made of."

Rovers now face a trip to Millwall in round four.