SAM Allardyce hopes Morten Gamst Pedersen’s ‘love for Blackburn Rovers’ will help to secure his long-term future at Ewood Park – as he anticipates a pivotal next couple of weeks in the Norwegian’s contract negotiations.

The Rovers boss puts Pedersen’s recent revival down to a more central midfield role he is playing and hopes the club can persuade him to renew his deal in East Lancashire, with his current contract expiring this summer.

Pedersen already has five goals to his name this campaign, ahead of this afternoon’s visit to Stoke City, and has started to win the fans back around after showing signs of his top form.

Clubs from abroad though are believed to be tracking Pedersen’s situation with interest but, having already been at Rovers since 2004, Allardyce is hopeful his allegiances to the club will be enough to keep him.

Allardyce said: “Morten has played wide left forever and a day. By changing his position we have given him a new outlook on the game and a new dimension by getting him more involved in the game.

“I would hope this will make him sign on again for us but negotiations today take forever. It is almost a year or so we have been trying to sort out Junior Hoilett’s deal and that is no nearer completion.

“Morten might drag on to be the same which would be very frustrating for us. We won’t know what is ours and what is not. We will keep on trying and hopefully Junior and Morten will sign on for us.

“The world we live in means everyone knows their value, everyone knows their going rate and if you can’t pay the going rate they will try and find somewhere else.

“I would think the cards the club holds is that we are a football club he has enjoyed playing for and still enjoys playing for, his attachment to the club and also the offer of the best deal we can provide within our finances. Hopefully that will be enough.

“We will find out in the next week or two whether he will commit. We should know by then whether it is a string out or real negotiations.”

Pedersen’s new lease of life has coincided with Allardyce changing his side’s formation. In a flexible system, the Norwegian is playing more centrally, allowing Martin Olsson and El-Hadji Diouf to attack from wide as support strikers.

“It has been a slight change in system,” said Allardyce. “We have had some much more consistent performances and better performances. I’m not saying we will play like that all the time but what is the point in changing when we are playing some of the best football we have played all year?

“It is serving us well at the moment and the players in that system are playing very well. Martin Olsson has forced his way into a the team. Developing a player like him is really pleasing for me.

“Where he comes past the rest of the players and says ‘look I am in the team’ and I say as a manager ‘well you stay in the team. Irrespective of all the players who have reputations greater than yours, you are doing better than they are’. That is really encouraging for me and makes the older players sit up and take notice.”

Despite embarking on a Premier League three match unbeaten run, Allardyce’s tactics have had their critics with some of the Ewood Park faithful calling for a return to a 4-4-2 formation.

The Rovers boss though has hit back at his detractors, claiming Rovers’ new style is far from negative and that people deal too much in ‘perception’ than ‘reality’.

Allardyce said: “It is 4-3-3, it is 4-5-1 when we haven’t got the ball but it is 4-3-3 so we are playing with three strikers instead of two.

“It is not about 4-5-1 and all that rubbish. No one plays with 4-4-2. We used to play 4-2-3-1 so we have never played 4-4-2 this year. No one plays 4-4-2 or very, very few. I think less than five teams play 4-4-2 in the Premier League.

“It is not about the system anyway, it is about players playing well in those positions and the system evolves from there. If that is the best system you stay with it, if the players are playing well. If it is not, you change it. I don’t envisage we will stay the same between now and the rest of the season.

“I hope we can because it means we won’t be losing football matches. "Niko Kalinic is never isolated, or whoever plays down the middle, was never isolated at West Ham, was never isolated against Wigan because the prozone stats tell us.”