MARK Hughes has brought the Rovers faithful a real present.

His new striker Roque Santa Cruz looks to be another shrewd bit of business. For a start, he's the right age. He's young enough and he's hungry.

But for only 25 he's also got great experiences, having playing for his country and won trophies in the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich.

Fair enough, the lad's not been having a great time of it in Germany over the last couple of seasons, but that will only serve to make him even more determined to prove to the people at Munich that he's a good player.

I don't think there's any doubting that after his performances in the Copa America with Paraguay. Scoring a hat-trick at international level is no mean feat and he looked a real class act.

You don't become a bad player overnight and Santa Cruz will be over here with that at the back of his mind.

Another good thing is the league that he's just come from, in terms of all the football league across Europe, is probably the one that is most similar our own Premiership.

It's quite physical. It's not like the total football they play in Italy and Spain, so I think it'll be easier for him to adapt, and that's important, especially with South American players, who have a history over struggling in England.

I was reading an article and apparently he speaks Spanish and so does Benni McCarthy, so hopefully they can both have a good understanding on the pitch.

He'll be wanting to play right from the start.

But the problem is, so will all the other strikers.

Mark has five top class strikers to choose from and, to be honest, I can see him rotating them.

It'll be up to the players who aren't selected to push for a place. That's what competition is all about and there's certainly plenty of competition for the forward roles now.

Having said that though, I think the writing is well and truly on the wall for Franny Jeffers. I'm sick of constantly saying it, but the lad's fallen too far down the pecking order for me. It's surely time he packed up and left Ewood Park for somewhere new.

As for the rest of them. Let the battle for places commence.