RAY Harford (pictured) travelled to France this afternoon to make a personal check on Spartak Moscow in European Cup action against Nantes tonight.

The Blackburn Rovers boss is stepping up his efforts to make top-quality signings before the transfer deadline at the end of this month.

And, as we exclusively revealed last night, two of the Spartak stars, Ilia Tsimbalar and Yuri Nikiforov, have been pencilled in as potential targets.

Rovers are without a game until next Wednesday, so the manager is using the time to weigh up all possibilities in the market.

Although he has seen Spartak against his own team, it's much better to be able to take a detached view.

Several Russian stars impressed in the Champions' League fixtures against Rovers but Harford will be able to take a more clinical look at them tonight.

Hopefully, Tsimbalar will have recovered from recent knee problems to take his place in the Spartak team.

The Russians, surprisingly, have already gone a long way down the road to breaking up the side that enjoyed a 100 per cent record in the UEFA Champions' League, winning all six group games.

And they have also lost their top coach Oleg Romantsev, who quit to give full attention to his duties with the national team following Russia's qualification for Euro 96.

Romantsev said in November that Spartak were aiming to hold onto their stars and they were tipped as a good outside bet for the European Cup.

But it seems to have been all change in Moscow.

Following the departure of the coach, and the loss of their Russian title, the players have been cashing in on their talents.

Goalkeeper Stanislav Cherchesov was soon on his way to Tirol in Austria, while Spartak skipper Viktor Onopko was heading for Real Oviedo in Spain. Millwall, meanwhile, pulled off an enterprising loan deal for Sergei Yuran and Vasili Kulkov.

The moves surprised Harford who felt the Russians would want to keep their squad together to continue their assault on Europe.

With the heart ripped out of their team, that now seems unlikely.

And, if things go against Spartak in Nantes tonight, they could be tempted to cash in on more of their assets.

Rovers Reserves meet Liverpool at Deepdale tonight (7pm) and have included trainee Damien Johnson in the squad following his excellent performance for the youth team on Monday night.

The squad is: Mimms, Hitchen, Whealing, Morgan, Marker, Coughlan, Johnson, Gill, Warhurst, Fenton, Gudmundsson, Tallon, Beattie, McCrone.

Next week's reserve game against Tranmere at Deepdale has been brought forward from Wednesday to Monday (7pm).

Rovers have also arranged one of their outstanding Pontin's League fixtures for Ewood. Problems fitting in the postponed home game against Derby at Deepdale mean Rovers will now play the match at Ewood on Thursday, April 4.

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