Blackburn Rovers face one of the biggest games in their recent history at Ewood Park tomorrow and in all likelihood one of their most consistent performers won't be involved.

In a season where Rovers have hardly covered themselves in glory defensively, Andy Todd has been one of the few success stories in a ragged back four.

But if the stories are true about him refusing to be a substitute against Leeds last week then how can Graeme Souness rely on him again?

The manager has to pick a team which he thinks will get a result and if Andy's not in it then he has to be big enough to take that on the chin.

Of course no-one likes being left out but the time to have it out with the manager is on Monday morning, not an hour before the club's biggest game of the season.

Just what exactly did Andy think he was achieving by walking out?

To do something like that is selfish at the best of times but to do it directly before a game of that importance is bordering on the unforgivable.

At this stage in the season, Souness needs all hands to the pump.

No player is bigger than the club and the most important thing is that Blackburn Rovers survive in the Premiership or half the squad could find themselves having to seek employment elsewhere this summer.

What Andy did is virtually tantamount to withdrawing his labour.

Footballers are highly paid professionals and they have a duty to act accordingly.

That means accepting the manager's decisions, even if they don't necessarily agree with them.

There's a time and a place to put your point across.

Players get dropped all the time but the best way of dealing with it is to knuckle down in training and prove the manager wrong.

I remember when Kenny Dalglish was first appointed as the manager of Blackburn.

He came to watch our game against Plymouth and I scored two goals in a 5-2 win but then when he took charge of his first match a week later, I found I was dropped.

As you can imagine, I wasn't very happy but I wasn't the type of person who used to go knocking on managers' doors.

The following Monday, Kenny called me into his office and explained why he had left me out, which was basically because he wanted a look at someone else.

I accepted that and it made me work even harder to try and prove a point to him.

Knowing Graeme as we do, it's likely Andy may have to be patient before he gets another chance but he backed his manager into a corner, which is a shame because we could do with battlers like him in the current situation.

Tomorrow's game is a massive one for Rovers. I said last week's game against Leeds was make or break but then we went and lost it.

To their credit, the players showed great character to bounce back and win on Monday at Fulham but all that hard work will count for nothing if they go and lose tomorrow.

A win for Rovers would make it virtually impossible for Leicester to catch them.

It's certainly not going to be pretty. Leicester are a team of battlers and, as we found to our cost at the Walkers Stadium earlier in the season, they will make it difficult for Rovers to break them down tomorrow.

But our luck at Ewood has got to change at some point and I've got a good feeling it might happen this weekend.