ONE of the most interesting facets of Blackburn Rovers league play this season has been the various pairings of the strike force used by both Brian Kidd and Tony Parkes.

Excluding combinations involving Kevin Davies and Kevin Gallacher, there have been four main starting pairings, with easily the most successful being Egil Ostenstad and Ashley Ward, who in 10 games have a 63 per cent success rate and who between them in those games have netted six times.

The current pairing of Ashley Ward and Matt Jansen have started five league games and have a 46 per cent success rate, but with no goals between them in those games.

Ashley Ward and Nathan Blake have played together six times and have a 44 per cent success rate with four goals between them.

Ostenstad and Jansen managed one draw, as did Jansen and Blake.

Ostenstad up front alone has a 100 per cent success rate (one game) whilst Ward's one game alone ended in defeat.

So the answer is plain to see for Tony Parkes. Play Ostenstad and Ward together for the goals and the results.

A 63 per cent success rate in the remaining 14 games would see Rovers with a total of 73 points (only two more than Charlton at present) but should be enough for a top six play-off position.

JOHN P HOWARTH, The Paddock, Blackburn.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.