TONY Parkes made a special FA Cup plea to his players today - forget all the speculation about Sven Goran Eriksson's future.

On the eve of tomorrow's long-awaited fourth round tie at Ewood, Blackburn Rovers' caretaker-boss urged his team to concentrate on Coventry and let others do the worrying about the managerial appointment.

Parkes is hoping to have virtually a full squad - apart from four longer-term casualties - available for the all-Premiership clash, with Chris Sutton seeming to have overcome a flu scare.

And he is keeping his fingers firmly crossed that the question mark over whether Eriksson will take over at Ewood in summer does not have any adverse effect on the players.

"I certainly don't think it does them any good," he said.

"They hear that Eriksson is coming, he's a top manager and they look forward to the experience of working with someone like that, as well as to him bringing in good players.

"Then there is all this speculation.

"But it's no use us wondering about what might or might not happen. That's for someone else to deal with. All we have been told is that the situation is unchanged. "What we have to do is put it out of our minds and get on with the job, just as we did from day one back in October.

"We are looking forward to the game. It doesn't matter whether it's a cup game or a League game, every one is very important to us.

"Hopefully, we can take up where we left off a fortnight ago when we beat West Ham.

"We want to have a good cup run, and it can have a spin-off for us in the League."

Parkes hopes that a flu bug which has been doing the rounds won't have any serious effects.

Sutton seems to have made a full recovery and should be fit and well to lead the front line, though Niklas Gudmundsson, in contention for a place on the bench, could be doubtful.

The caretaker-boss isn't likely to stray far from his tried and tested formula.

When Rovers beat Coventry 4-0 a month ago, Billy McKinlay was suspended. But he was restored to the side for the last match against West Ham.

Since Rovers reached the quarter finals four years ago, they have gone out at the third round stage twice and the fourth round once. The starting line-up will come from: Flowers, Kenna, Berg, Hendry, Le Saux, Sherwood, McKinlay, Flitcroft, Gallacher, Sutton, Wilcox, Bohinen, Donis, Warhurst, Marker.

Coventry are ready to make tomorrow's game a much closer contest than the last Premiership encounter, marred by Dion Dublin's dismissal.

Manager Gordon Strachan said: "We were disappointed. But we knew what it would be like when we went down to 10 men. At the time Blackburn were flying. They are one of the form teams."

Although they only just scraped past Conference side Woking after a third round replay, Coventry are likely to name an unchanged team.

Recent £2.5 million signing Gary Breen is cup-tied and Dublin is still suspended.

They are expected to choose from: Ogrizovic, Shaw, Borrows, Williams, Telfer, Richardson, McAllister, Whelan, Hall, Huckerby, Jess, Boland, Ndlovu, Strachan, Filan.

Tickets will be on sale until kick-off.

Rovers A and B teams are both without games this weekend.

Coral make Rovers 4-5 favourites to win tomorrow, with Coventry 3-1 and the draw 9-4. Chris Sutton (4-1) is favourite to score the first goal. Rovers are priced 11-1 to win the trophy, with Coventry 25-1.

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