The SIMON GARNER column

Blackburn Rovers' preparations for the visit of Birmingham City have been overshadowed this week by all the furore surrounding the sacking of Tony Parkes.

But now that particular storm seems to have subsided, everyone at the club needs to channel all their energies into getting the three points.

In many ways, Sunday's Sky game is a battle between Blackburn Rovers past and present.

Birmingham boss Steve Bruce has four former Rovers players in his squad and each and every one of them will be wanting to put 'one over' their old club this weekend.

David Dunn, Dwight Yorke, Martin Taylor and Damien Johnson were all shown the door by Graeme Souness at some point during their Blackburn careers - each for very different reasons.

And although Souness is no longer in the hot-seat at Rovers, every one of those players will feel as though they've got some point to prove on Sunday.

I know from experience you always raise your game an extra couple of notches as a player whenever you come up against a former club.

You want to show the fans that the club was wrong to let you go in the first place.

Dunn, in particular, will be desperate to impress if he's passed fit because this will be his first visit to Ewood as an opposition player since his £5.5 million move to Birmingham 18 months ago.

A lot was said and written about the rights and wrongs of that move at the time.

Opinion seemed to be divided amongst the fans.

There were those who thought a home-grown talent like Dunny should never have been sold, while others backed Souness's judgement that David had taken 'his eye off the ball'.

I'm, personally, a big David Dunn fan and I was sorry to see him leave.

On his day, there are few better attacking midfielders in the Premiership and under any manager other than Souness, he would probably still be at Blackburn now.

Having said that, the £5.5 million Rovers banked from his sale currently looks like decent business given Dunny's injury problems since leaving.