Blackburn Rovers defender: We all need to help out strikers

9:40am Friday 30th July 2010

By Andy Cryer

CHRIS Samba insists the burden of easing Blackburn Rovers’ fire power woes lies on the whole squad’s shoulders – rather than expecting the strikers to carry the full weight of responsibility.

All the talk this summer has been on Sam Allardyce’s efforts to add to his strike force ahead of the new campaign and, while accepting a new face would be beneficial, Samba believes they all have a part to play.

The search for a striker back home continues with a second bid believed to have been submitted for their number one target.

Rovers are understood to have an initial bid rejected for their target, but negotiations are continuing as Blackburn refuse to give up on their man, whose identity they are keeping secret for fear of scuppering the move.

In Australia, Rovers’ 18-year-old defender Phil Jones headed home his first senior goal in Wednesday’s 2-1 defeat to AEK Athens in the Sydney Festival of Football as their summer preparations continued.

It was only their second goal in their last four pre-season matches, including successive defeats in Australia, and with only two wins against non league opposition to their name so far, concerns are growing among the Rovers faithful.

The presence of just two senior strikers in Allardyce’s ranks at the moment, the injured Nikola Kalinic and Jason Roberts, is doing little to ease any worries but Samba believes everyone can help to solve their apparent goal shyness.

Samba said: “Last season I think the defence should be quite happy with what we achieved.

"Between myself, Gael Givet, Ryan Nelsen and Martin Olsson, I think we got more than 10. That is a good thing.

“We have to keep improving though. I had a couple of big misses as well so I can improve on that.

“It is a good feeling to score goals and helping the team to win games should be enough motivation. We can all do better in front of goal.

Samba has improved his own goal tally each season so far at Rovers, finishing last campaign with four, while defensive partner Ryan Nelsen matched his exploits last time around.

Samba believes though there are still improvements to be head, claiming the midfielders and defenders need to up their own tallies for the new campaign.

“The best thing is if the defenders and midfielders score goals and the strikers score even more,” he said.

“I think if we all scored one or two goals more we would climb a couple of positions in the table.

“Every time you go on the pitch you think you can do something more, more goals, more clearances.

"It is important you remember the year before and how we had a difficult start and we will look to correct this.

“We know our strikers work very hard for the team and we work very hard for them.