SKIPPER Tim Sherwood believes a ring of confidence is the key to a Blackburn Rovers revival.

Rovers were facing fellow-strugglers Coventry this afternoon in a game crucial to both sides.

But Sherwood feels better times could be just around the corner.

"We need a win desperately," he said.

"Because when you win games confidence grows and confidence is the main thing we have been missing.

"We know the players we have here are quality players but it's not enough to do it individually, we have to jell as a team.

"If we do, there's no reason why we cannot do as well as last season."

Sherwood feels the recovery of Jason Wilcox and the continuing progress of Graeme Le Saux can make a big difference to the side.

But he also understands the problems of the players who have had to play out of position to cope with the absence of key left-sided stars.

"It's been very difficult for the boys who have come in, even though they are very good players," he said.

"And I think they have done extremely well under stressful conditions. "But getting that left-hand side back will be a help for us. The sooner you get international players back in your side the better.

"Then the other boys can concentrate on getting back in their natural positions."

The skipper knows that results haven't been good enough and he stressed that points were more important than entertaining performances at the moment.

With Rovers struggling to score goals in the early games, it made everyone edgy.

And there have certainly been signs of that in the home games.

"It helps any team to score goals. It settles everyone down," he said.

"We want to get some points and then we can start to think about being entertaining.

"When the goals don't come it can get really tense and not pretty to watch.

"You can hear the crowd getting uptight and it's only natural for them to be like that, because what has happened has been very disappointing.

"But we have to block all that out of our minds and I think it's getting better."

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