PAUL Lambert paid tribute to ‘maverick’ Tony Watt and ‘bang in form’ Danny Graham after the on-loan strikers fired Blackburn Rovers to a 2-0 home win over Birmingham City last night.

Play-off pushing Birmingham arrived in East Lancashire on the back of six clean sheets in their previous eight matches but they were blown away in the space of three first-half minutes.

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Watt scored his first goal at Ewood Park in stylish fashion before Graham latched on to a quick kick downfield by goalkeeper Jason Steele to make it three goals in four games on home turf.

Rovers boss Lambert said: “It was brilliant piece of skill and strength from Watt for the first goal.

“He is a maverick who does things that are unexpected and gets people off their backside.

“But Tony has got to get fitter, and he should be up to speed as he’s a young lad, but he’s got massive, massive potential.

Lancashire Telegraph:

“Danny has led the line fantastically for us, he’s a brilliant lad, and we’re delighted he’s here.

“It was great thinking by Jason and a terrific finish from a lad who is bang on form.”

The quickfire double strike meant Rovers made it four straight home league victories for the first time since February 2010 in what was their eighth match in 25 days.

It also acted as the perfect response to Saturday’s harsh 1-0 derby defeat at Burnley.

So while Lambert was not entirely satisfied with the performance he hailed his side for grinding out what he felt was a ‘huge win’ in the circumstances.

He said: “I knew it was going to be hard because of the amount of games we’ve been playing and the effort the lads put in on Saturday.

“It was massively disappointing emotionally to lose to our local rivals when I thought we were excellent and should have won.

Lancashire Telegraph:

“Birmingham had also kept six clean sheets in eight games so to break them down was always going to be tough.

“I thought we had a lot of the ball and sometimes that can be detrimental because you run out of ideas when you have too much of it or you don’t play instinct football.

“I thought we got caught with that at certain times but generally it was a huge win.

“And that’s the first time in six years we’ve won four straight league games at home, which is incredible.

“I think the last time this club did it was under Sam Allardyce. Sam had a brilliant side here and, while that was in the Premier League, the lads deserve a lot of credit.”