EXCITED new Blackburn Rovers boss Paul Lambert has no intention of reining back his team in today’s big Deepdale derby with Preston North End.

Only Bolton Wanderers have drawn as many games as the Lancashire rivals in the Championship this season and they both boast impressive defensive records.

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Rovers will make the short 13-mile trip across the county having kept six clean sheets in their last 12 matches.

Preston are proving an even meaner proposition and a seventh successive league shut-out this afternoon would break a club record that was first set in 1901.

You have to go back to October 3 and 540 minutes of football for the last time that Simon Grayson’s side conceded a goal.

And asked whether Rovers can end that miserly run upbeat Lambert said: “We have to. If we have to win the game we have to score.

“And to score we’re going to have to play on the front foot and play the way I want.

“We’ll go and try to win the game. We’re not going to go there and sit and try and bed ourselves in. It’s a game that I want to go and win.”

A victory in the first competitive meeting of the clubs since May 2001 would represent the perfect start to Lambert’s Rovers reign.

It will be the first match the former Celtic, Borussia Dortmund and Scotland midfielder has taken charge of since he lost his job at Aston Villa in February.

Lambert said: “It’s been great being out on the training pitch again but it will be even better on Saturday when you have that adrenaline rush and the feeling of a matchday.

“But ultimately the players are the one that are crossing the white line and if they and the supporters back each other then we’ve definitely got a chance.”

Rovers will be roared on by a sell-out 5,500 strong travelling support this afternoon.

And Lambert, who played in massive derbies in Scotland and Germany and oversaw thumping 5-1 and 4-1 wins for Norwich City over Ipswich Town, said: “I was lucky enough to play in some huge ones and they mean so much to people off the pitch as well.

“This one will be no different. The atmosphere will be fantastic at Preston. It’s a game that we want to win and get on the front foot.”

Lambert added: “Any game that we were going to play on Saturday was always going to be a little bit hyped up because of what’s happened during the week.

“The only difference with this one is we’ll have a massive following who will get right behind the side.

“It’s up to us to give something back; we’ve got to give them something. That’s what we’ll try and do.”

Rovers left-back Markus Olsson said: “It’s a big game and there’s a bit of rivalry there.

“Hopefully we can go there and get three points. We try to go into every game and try to win it.”