DUNCAN McKenzie believes that Southampton's relegation battling know-how could boot his former clubs Blackburn Rovers and Everton into Nationwide League oblivion.

Both have yet to visit the Dell - Rovers tomorrow week, Everton on the season's final day - and McKenzie said: "I fear for both of them.

"The other teams look better at playing the survival game and it's a long time since Blackburn struggled.

"Charlton are winning games and Southampton are excellent at home.

"No longer can you talk about teams being too good to go down.

"I can see Southampton putting both Blackburn and Everton down."

McKenzie, revered by the fans at Goodison, was also a very popular figure in his Ewood days. He was an integral part of the team which won promotion from Division Three under Howard Kendall's management in 1979-80.

McKenzie scored a dozen goals in 42 games as Rovers finished second in the table and he also featured in almost half the games the following season before going to America.

Now they are scrapping desperately to stay up while yet another, Nottingham Forest where his career began, already look doomed!

"Twenty years on, it could be an unhappy hat-trick," he said.

"The only thing is that I'm a terrible tipster."

McKenzie felt Sheffield Wednesday were bankers for the drop, until they won at Goodison, where he rarely misses a home game, on Easter Monday.

"We (Everton) have just saved their Premiership careers," he explained.

"They were First Division material until Everton contrived to give them Premiership survival." This is Rovers' second struggle against the drop in three seasons.

But Everton, who have spent 45 successive years in the top flight - longer than most clubs including Manchester United - are facing the axe for the third time in the last five.

In 1994 a 3-2 last day victory over Wimbledon saw the Goodison Park side survive as Sheffield United slipped into the First Division.

And last season only Bolton's 2-0 defeat at Chelsea preserved the Toffees' Premiership status.

On Everton, McKenzie said: "I would probably say no, we won't survive. We have been staring it in the face so many times but the people who are down there are perennial battlers as well.

"And my tipping is not the best in the world so hopefully I will be wrong again!

"It is looking very difficult but it is down to whether the players can pick themselves up after Monday when they were looking reasonably comfortable at half time and then two silly mistakes led to defeat. "It gets harder by the minute. We are now in the bottom three and we are being asked to do what we have not done all year - win games.

"The bottom line is, if you cannot score goals, pressure mounts and that has been a massive problem.

"At Blackburn, the team that Jack and Kenny built has been broken up and what has changed since then has not really gelled.

"There has obviously been a procession of changes, just like Everton, with money thrown at it.

"But I don't hold with this nonsense you hear that Jack's given up, having achieved his ambitions for the club. I can only hope I'm wrong and that Blackburn and Everton meet again next season, in the right division."

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