ASHLEY Ward looked at Blackburn Rovers' crucial Easter double at home to mid-table Middlesbrough tomorrow, followed by a daunting trip to title-chasing Arsenal, and declared - There's no difference.

The £4.5 million hit-man, who says there is genuine belief at Ewood that Rovers can stay up, reckons it simply doesn't matter who provides the opposition.

And he believes the spirit in the camp will be a major factor when it comes to the crunch.

"The likes of Chelsea and Arsenal will tell you that they don't bank on anything when they are playing the bottom teams," he said.

"There is pressure every week, and the form book goes out of the window at this stage of the season.

"Teams that have been written off - usually Coventry! - suddenly beat Liverpool and Manchester United in successive weeks.

"Every game is so difficult in the Premier League.

"We have eight games left and if we win four of them we stay up. It doesn't just rest on one game.

"But I think the key is going to be keeping our spirits up.

"We've just had two decent results, an away draw and a home win, which could be invaluable. "Now we have to build on that and keep on being positive as we go into games."

Ward, whose mother is happily recovering well from a brain haemorrhage, added: "Our morale and knowing that we have the players here to do it will be important.

The manager will wait for fitness checks on Chris Sutton (groin) and new signing Lee Carsley (ankle) before naming his team.

But there seems a good chance at least one of them will make it.

Billy McKinlay is also back in training after his groin operation but the Easter games might just have come too early for him.

"He's just getting back into his football work but he's still doing remedial work as well," said Kidd.

Providing there were no unexpected complications following the internationals, Rovers should have a reasonable choice.

Marlon Broomes is available again after suspension but they have lost Damien Duff for the foreseeable future to the Republic of Ireland and it would help midfield if Carsley was fit for a debut.

Rovers are set to choose from: Filan, McAteer, Henchoz, Peacock, Broomes, Davidson, Gillespie, Johnson, Marcolin, Carsley, Dunn, Wilcox, Sutton, Ward, Jansen, Davies, Blake, Croft, Taylor, Flowers.

If Middlesbrough decide to stick with their usual three central defenders then Dean Gordon is likely to be switched from his wing-back role to join Gary Pallister and Colin Cooper. Manager Bryan Robson is also waiting for the outcome of a fitness test on midfielder Neil Maddison (groin strain) before finalising his team but, whatever the outcome of that, Paul Gascoigne is expected to get a recall.

Ex-Burnley keeper Marlon Beresford will be on the bench for Boro.

Their starting line-up is expected to come from: Schwarzer, Stockdale, Cooper, Pallister, Gordon, Harrison, O'Neill, Gascoigne, Maddison, Townsend, Summerbell, Ricard, Deane, Armstrong, Baker, Beresford.

The Ewood ticket office was open until 3pm this afternoon and will be open again tomorrow from 9am-5.15pm.

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