AFTER surprising a few people by making it through to the quarter finals of the Worthington Cup at Newcastle in midweek, Roy Hodgson is hoping his team can pull off another shock at Old Trafford tomorrow.

And, while he acknowledges the difficulty of visiting an in-form Manchester United, the Rovers manager would not rule anything out.

"Manchester United will be in the driving seat. They would think that if they were playing at home to Arsenal, never mind a team in the bottom three," he said.

"But it's like everything else. In this league, you just don't know what's going to happen.

"Everyone was confident after our recent performances that we would get the three points we needed against Coventry City.

"As it turns out we didn't play very well, we came across an extremely good Coventry side and we didn't.

" I don't think many Blackburn Rovers supporters, or football experts, would have given us much of a chance to beat Newcastle away.

"They would have looked at the teams, looked at the players injured, they would have heard that Flowers dropped out of the game injured the day before and would have been saying this is a very easy win for Newcastle United.

"As it turned out it wasn't, we went through.

"But I think this team has a lot of character, I think the club has a lot of good players and a lot of good points.

"I am sure that, by the end of the season, we'll have more smiles on our faces than we have at the moment.

"I am sorry to say, realistically, it's going to take time."

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