BLACKBURN Rovers' FA Cup adventure might have reached the end of the road at Old Trafford, but the defeat against Chelsea could prove to be a turning point in the career of Jason Roberts.

Signed from Wigan last summer for £2.5 million, Roberts has taken time to settle in at his new club, mainly because several untimely injury set-backs have hindered his progress.

But after nine months and 20 appearances, he finally scored his first Rovers goal in the biggest game of Mark Hughes' Ewood reign so far.

Earlier, Hughes had sprung a surprise by including Roberts in his starting line-up at the expense of Matt Derbyshire, whose goals in the previous rounds had helped Rovers into the the semi-finals.

Perhaps Mark felt it was going to be difficult to get behind Chelsea so he put Jason in instead of Matt, believing he and Benni McCarthy would be more adept at playing with their backs to goal and holding the ball up.

Whatever the thinking behind it, the move appeared to work as Jason not only scored the goal that put Rovers back on level terms in the second half, he also caused John Terry and Co no end of problems at the back.

The key for Jason now is to build on that and keep performing to the same level for the remainder of the season.

All strikers thrive on scoring goals and Jason will feel a huge sense of relief that he's finally off the mark for his new club. I think you could see that in the way he celebrated on Sunday; all the frustration of the last nine months poured out as that ball hit the back of the net.

Now that weight has been lifted from his shoulders, hopefully Jason will flourish during the run-in and start to form a productive partnership with McCarthy up front.

That's not to say we should forget about Matty Derbyshire. Far from it.

Young Matt has surpassed all expectations this season and he can count himself unlucky not to have started on Sunday.

Right now, he's probably feeling a bit down about the fact he got relegated to the bench for a game of such importance, but he should be proud of what he has achieved this season, and those experiences will only stand him in good stead in the future.

Although Rovers lost on Sunday, they did themselves great credit by the way they performed, particularly in the second half when they really carried the fight to Chelsea and might have pinched a winner.

They must keep that momentum going in the final weeks of the season and look to finish as high up the Premiership table as possible.