ROY HODGSON saw Kevin Davies and Martin Dahlin fire the first serious shots last night in the battle to forge a new Blackburn Rovers strike force with Chris Sutton when the Premiership kicks off and declared: "That can only be good for me."

Two-goal Dahlin put the pressure on record signing Davies, who grabbed his first for Rovers in a 5-1 win over Kristianstad and there is still Kevin Gallacher to come back from injury and Per Pedersen to throw into the equation.

Sutton, who has quickly recaptured last season's red-hot form, is a certainty to start against Derby, but there is going to be a battle royal to join him with the race already well under way.

New boy Davies has not yet been able to attain the same fitness levels as his team mates due to his lengthy absence - he has not started a Premiership game since January.

Hodgson expected that and is prepared to be patient although there are no guarantees for the record signing.

"At the moment, Kevin is still struggling to find his feet after a long lay-off from football," said the manager. "I was pleased for him to score such a good goal because he was obviously desperate to get one. "He is getting better all the time but he is still a way off the player he was before he was injured last season.

"We knew that, we knew it would take time for him. But he must be a little bit concerned when he knows that Gallacher is waiting there and he sees Dahlin doing that.

"It's not his fault we've paid a lot of money for him, sometimes you pay a lot of money for players, sometimes you get them for nothing. It evens out in the long run.

"What is important is that we have a strong squad of players this year.

"He has got time on his side, he's a young man and there's no doubt we saw glimpses of the talent that we bought last night. Of course, if he is going to be a top Premiership player he's going to have to do a lot more.

"You could see the difference with the players who have been playing in their movement and understanding.

"Sherwood and Flitcroft gave a definitive central midfield performance and Sutton was the best player on the field by a street."

Hodgson has also invested a lot of faith in Dahlin and he could be about to be repaid.

"He took his goals very well and he was close to getting a couple more," said Hodgson.

Rovers have played progressively better in Sweden despite missing so many players.

"I think we could have won all three games here to be honest," said the manager. "The first game didn't interest me too much because we had just got off the plane and I was more concerned about having a good week's training than that game which was a necessary evil.

"In these last two games we have got some football under our belt, we have done a lot of physical training so these games were more interesting for us. They were the fun part of the week and I think if this team had played against Malmo we would have won there too."

Rovers said today they had not received any renewed approach from Rangers for Colin Hendry.

And the club said today that they would not welcome a new bid following an initial expression of interest, believed to be some time ago.

Ewood chief executive John Williams, responding to comments by Rangers new boss Dick Advocaat, maintained that Rovers had no intention of selling at this moment in time.

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