TOM Cairney says there was no place better to end his Blackburn Rovers goal drought than at Elland Road.

The midfielder set Rovers on their way to a thumping 3-0 victory over Leeds United on Saturday when he scored his third goal of the season but his first since August.

And now Cairney, who was on the books of Leeds from the age of seven to 16 before he was released for being too small, is determined to add to his tally before the campaign is out.

“It’s about time I scored,” said Rovers’ reigning player of the year, who finished last season with six goals to his name after netting four in his final 11 appearances.

“So it was nice to do it but especially against Leeds because I had a lot of friends and family in the crowd. It made it extra special.

“Hopefully it will be a little like last season. I went a while without scoring but then I scored against Barnsley and then I went on a little bit of a run. If that happens again I’d be more than happy.”

Jordan Rhodes and Jay Spearing also found the net after Leeds were reduced to 10 men as Rovers made it three straight league wins away from home.

Cairney said: “It’s not easy winning any game but especially away from home.

“In the first 15 minutes the crowd was behind them and it was tough.

“But we weathered the storm, grew into the game and after their lad got sent off we just needed the first goal.

“We got it and after that we were comfortable and could have scored a lot more.”

Cairney and his team-mates can now turn their attention to Wednesday’s FA Cup quarter-final replay with Liverpool.

It will be exactly a month since Rovers held Liverpool, who went down to a damaging 4-1 Premier League defeat at Arsenal on Saturday, to a 0-0 draw in the initial Anfield tie between the teams.

And Cairney, who played in the top flight for Hull City, said: “It’s here and we can’t wait.

“We’ve not been trying to talk about it even though everyone’s been thinking about it.

“After what we did at Anfield everyone was like, ‘when’s the replay’, and then we found out it was about four months later!

“It’s the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, the winners get to Wembley, and there are not many tickets left.

“So it’s going to be like a Premier League occasion. I’ve not experienced a Premier League occasion before in a Blackburn shirt but it’ll be the closest thing to it so it’s going to be a hell of a night and it’s going to take some effort from everyone to get through.

“It’s going to be tough, everyone knows who the favourites are, even after their result today, which I’m sure they’ll be looking to put right, but we’ll go into it full of confidence after this result.

“It’s going to be brilliant.”