ROVERS: Coar hits back over Dalglish attack

Dalglish's appointment at Newcastle last week, and his subsequent comments, suddenly turned the spotlight back on his move "upstairs" with Rovers.

The Scot said he had done it for "football reasons".

And he was then widely quoted in the Sunday newspapers, admitting he had "opened up a can of worms" but claiming his position at Ewood had been undermined.

In one, Dalglish was quoted: "I won't interfere with the job the directors are doing and they won't interfere with mine. That's all I ask. That's the way I was brought up at Liverpool and for part of my time at Blackburn."

And, in another: "My position at the club was being undermined. I wouldn't like to expand on that but rightly or wrongly it's the way I felt."

Rovers have said little so far but his comments have not gone down well at Ewood and continuing reports prompted Mr Coar to counter them.

He said: "Kenny Dalglish told us at the time that he wanted to step down as manager because he no longer wanted the day-to-day involvement, or the travelling, associated with the job.

"Nothing was said in his book to alter that. "But, if the comments attributed to him in the newspapers at the weekend are correct, then it would appear he has had a change of mind.

"We can only wonder why if there was something so seriously wrong, or a matter of principle involved, he was very happy to remain in the employment of the club for so long afterwards."

Not surprisingly, the national Press have already started to link Dalglish with Ewood in transfer speculation.

Henning Berg has been named as a target but, if Dalglish asks, he will get the same response as Manchester United or any other club - nothing doing.

North East sources said today that Newcastle were believed to be concentrating their efforts on a Portuguese defender, Raul, who plays for Farense.

Newcastle are also thought to be rivals for Shay Given, the young keeper signed by Dalglish from Celtic.

Given, who has had a transfer request rejected, looks set to leave Ewood when his contract expires at the end of the season but not before.

Meanwhile, a report that Given is about to undergo a hernia operation was dismissed by caretaker-boss Tony Parkes.

"I don't know where that has come from," he said. "Shay had a few days rest because of a stomach strain but I would expect him to play for the reserves on Wednesday. "If it was to develop into anything worse, then we would have to take it from there but that certainly isn't the case at the moment."

Parkes said there had not been any further developments on Polish star Marek Citko, though Widzew Lodz seem keen to sell.

Their president Andrej Pawalec said: "Things are progressing and it's just a matter of whether they are prepared to come up with the money."

The question is whether Rovers would pay so much for a player they haven't studied in match action.

Rovers have decided to let one player go. Young defender Richard Hope has joined Darlington on a month's loan and made his League debut for them on Saturday in a 2-0 win over Cambridge.

"He needs to be playing games and we need to see how far he has progressed," said Parkes.

"It could well be that others will get the chance to go on loan through similar circumstances."

Parkes also revealed today that Rovers' second yellow card on Saturday went to Colin Hendry, not Henning Berg, who had been pulled up for a foul. Berg was reported everywhere as having been booked but it was, in fact, Hendry for saying something.

Graeme Le Saux was sore but all right after the game following a head injury, sustained in an awkward fall.

It looked ominous when Le Saux went down in agony. He had banged his head heavily on a hard pitch but did well to shake off the knock and complete the game.

Rovers A team lost 1-0 at Wrexham. The B team defeated Burnley 3-1 with goals from Michael Lomax, Lee Owler and Junior Obeng, Burnley's scorer was Matthew Heywood.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.