MARK Hughes will order his Blackburn Rovers players to shoot on sight this evening in an attempt to heap further misery on hapless England goalkeeper Scott Carson.
After his glaring error against Croatia last week cost England a place at next summer's European Championship finals, Hughes believes the Aston Villa stopper is still suffering from a crisis of confidence as he prepares to step out at Ewood Park.
Carson gifted the Croats the softest of opening goals at Wembley, when he fumbled a shot from Nico Kranjcar barely seven minutes into his competitive international debut, and England never recovered from that point onwards.
Now Hughes will instruct his strikers to test out Carson's resolve with a few early sighters tonight, believing the 23-year-old could still be vulnerable following another jittery performance against Middlesbrough at the weekend.
"He looked a little bit nervous in the opening period on Saturday, I have to say," said Hughes, perhaps attempting to steal an early psychological advantage.
"He had a couple of backpasses early on which he looked a little bit nervous on but, from Boro's point of view, they couldn't put him under enough pressure to really test his nerve.
"But maybe his performance for England will still be playing on his mind and maybe we can test that."
Although he kept a clean sheet, Carson looked anything but assured during Villa's 3-0 victory at the Riverside; in fact, he almost conceded a similar type of goal to the one that Kranjcar scored last week when he allowed a seventh-minute shot from Stewart Downing to squirm under his body.
With his confidence therefore still fragile, Hughes believes Rovers can exploit a possible weakness in Villa's armoury by testing Carson out at every opportunity.
"You have to be a strong character to be a goalkeeper and he's going to have to show that character tonight," said Hughes.
"It's important now that he bounces back, and I'm sure he will.
"He's well thought of at his club and the Villa fans will try to protect him - I thought they were good in that respect at the weekend by always encouraging him.
"But I'm sure teams will still try to test his resolve and his nerve, certainly in the games immediately after the England one."
Aside from shooting on sight, set-piece specialists such as Morten Gamst Pedersen, David Bentley and David Dunn will also attempt to apply the pressure on Carson from dead-ball situations.
"I think you'd do that anyway, just to test keepers to see if they're on their game," said Hughes.
"That's what we'll be doing anyway because we do that in every game in fairness."
Rearranged from earlier in the season, tonight's clash with Villa is effectively Rovers' game in hand, and a victory for the home side would see them leapfrog their opponents in the Premier League table.
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