YAKUBU faces his Blackburn Rovers tomorrow, hoping his old club will soon return to the top flight after his ‘crazy’ season at Ewood Park.

The Nigerian striker had only one year with the club, scoring a highly impressive 18 goals in 33 games during the 2011/12 campaign, but Rovers were still relegated amid anger at Steve Kean and Venky’s.

Yakubu later moved on to Chinese club Guangzhou R&F and Al Rayyan in Qatar, before returning to England in early February to join Reading on a deal until the end of the season.

He will take on his old club tomorrow when Rovers face the Royals at the Madejski Stadium.

“It is a good club with nice people,” the 32-year-old told the Reading Post.

“Getting relegated was really tough, it was not nice. But I still had a great time there. The players and fans were all fantastic to me.

“We had good and experienced players, so it was a real shame we went down.

“I remember as players we were always playing under pressure. The fans were against the owners and the manager. It was quite crazy there.

“But it’s more stable now than before and hopefully they can get back to the Premier League. I hope so.”

Gary Bowyer was Rovers’ reserve boss during Yakubu’s days at the club, and watched him start for Reading in Tuesday’s 1-1 draw at Blackpool.

“The Yak looked good,” was his assessment. “He’s still a handful for the defence, he’s got that know-how and in front of goal he’s deadly.

“He was a very good personality here and the season he had with us he was phenomenal. Even though it was the season we got relegated, his goal return was unbelievable and you can’t help but like the bloke.”

While Rovers missed out on a trip to Wembley in midweek, Reading take on Arsenal in the FA Cup semi finals next weekend.

Bowyer, though, thinks Royals boss Steve Clarke will not take his eye off this game - and the Scot was at Ewood for the Liverpool game for a scouting mission.

Reading will wear a special one-off kit for tomorrow's game, designed by a 14-year-old fan who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy and who drew the strip for a school project.