ANDY TODD will keep his place for Wednesday's crunch tie against Manchester United despite his red card at the weekend.
Rovers manager Graeme Souness today confirmed he will stand by his central defender for the Worthington Cup semi-final clash at Ewood Park.
Todd was sent off for kicking Birmingham striker Christophe Dugarry, in what opposition manager Steve Bruce described as both an 'outrage' and 'assault'.
But Souness believes there were mitigating circumstances to his actions, although he agreed with the dismissal. He will not the fine the player either.
Souness said today: "Andy is extremely disappointed with himself. He knows he has let everyone down and I can't condone what he did.
"It was a sending off, no doubt about that, but I would ask people to look at Dugarry lashing out at him.
"I can see why he reacted and Todd feels Dugarry should have been sent off with him.
"There is also the challenge from Cisse but no one is talking about that.
"I only saw the Premiership and Ron Atkinson talking about it. He lives in Birmingham and no doubt he felt as if he needed to side with them."
Souness added: "What happened was they both went up for a ball with another one of my players and Dugarry has then lashed out while he was on the ground and Andy Todd turned around and kicked him up the backside. If the referee had seen that he would have had to send him off as well - he had already been booked.
"It's very hard to hold yourself back in that sort of situation. Some of us have been there."
Birmingham boss Steve Bruce was less forgiving and even suggested the Rovers player should serve a long ban.
He said: "It's an outrage for someone to kick out like that and I have never seen anything like that," he said.
"I cannot understand anybody viciously booting someone like that.
"I don't know what Dugarry has done to warrant that sort of vicious attack on him.
"He might want to go back to the tranquil life of Bordeaux after that assault."
