TONY Parkes has leapt to the defence of Graeme Souness following Saturday's explosive scenes at St Mary's Stadium.

Souness was involved in a furious touchline and tunnel exchange with Southampton coach Dennis Rofe following Rovers' 2-0 defeat, accusing him of encouraging the referee to send Andy Cole off.

And with more sparks set to fly when Blackburn and Liverpool resume their infamous rivalry tonight, Parkes insists that the game needs figures like his manager to keep football interesting.

"Graeme is passionate and some people say that is going over the top, but he won't change and nor should he change," said Parkes.

"People complain about Sven-Goran Eriksson sat on the bench not moving and say, 'has he got desire, has he got passion?' So you can't win.

"That's the way he is and if people think that will change they're mistaken."

Parkes also revealed that he and the rest of the staff have been helping Souness to lift his team from their current run of poor form.

Blackburn have slipped to 15th in the Premiership on the back of four consecutive defeats and Parkes is insisting everyone is pulling together to stay positive.

He said: "When things don't go right players are down and managers get down as well, but who looks after the manager?

"Certain people have to lift the manager. Graeme is not as lively as he normally is and that's obvious from the results we've had.

"Graeme speaks to everybody to get to know their feelings and likes to get everybody's comments, know what they think.

"We just try to talk to him and try to be as positive as we can with him. He has his own thoughts but I'm sure that, along with the players, he can't wait for tonight's game.

"Come tomorrow night he will be back to normal and will be on that touchline willing the team on."

Meanwhile, Rovers will abandon their tactic of playing with one striker in tonight's Carling Cup tie.

Souness is set to revert to a 4-4-2 formation in a bid to get the goals to kick-start Blackburn's season.

Andy Cole ploughed a lone furrow up front in last week's defeats to Charlton and Southampton, with Rovers failing to score in both games.

And while the system was originally introduced to ease the defensive crisis, Rovers see tonight's third round tie as the ideal opportunity to go for goals.

"When we play with one striker it's harder to score goals," admitted assistant boss Parkes.

"We were looking to stop goals with that system, packing the midfield and not giving them away.

"If you do go one behind you look to put another striker on, but we've not had the luxury of scoring the first goal so the system hasn't really been tested in a more positive way.

"We'll be going back to 4-4-2 now because we have to look at where the goals are going to come from and work on our attacking play."