DAVID Dunn has declared himself ready to give Ewood Park a welcome lift with boss Sam Allardyce heralding the talismanic midfielder’s timely return.

The Ewood Park favourite has played just 43 minutes of Premier League football so far this season but is expected to return to Rovers’ squad for Monday night’s visit of Sunderland.

Dunn enjoyed his best campaign for almost a decade last season, scoring 10 goals in just 23 starts, but has seen hopes of repeating that this time round destroyed by injury Dunn has used the international break to step up his rehabilitation from a hamstring injury and, having returned to training, is now expected to make his first Ewood appearance since the end of August.

Whether or not Dunn is risked from the start remains to be seen, but Allardyce admits the option of his creativity and eye for goals has been sorely missed so far this campaign.

Allardyce said: “We are very pleased David is back in training and hopefully he can put together a run of games without picking up any more injuries. We know how important he is to the team, certainly last season.

“He was our best creator, our best goal scorer and a fit David Dunn is massive for us. It looked like he was going to be that at the start of this season because he had never had such a good pre season as he had.

“He didn’t miss a day’s training, didn’t miss a game and we were all excited and looking forward to the new season and unfortunately he picks up an injury, then another one, and almost a quarter of the season has elapsed before we get him back on the field.

“He does give that extra lift. He is one of our most talented players. He is the biggest creator in the final third. He has been missed and perhaps if we had him we would have picked up more points.”

Rovers go into Monday’s clash with Sunderland level on points with the Black Cats after a satisfactory start to the campaign, but Allardyce knows it should have been so much better.

Their last home win in the league came on the opening day of the season and Allardyce is desperate to see a return of their fortress Ewood reputation.

He said: “I have been pleased with where we are but we have to push on now.

"It has been a month since we played at Ewood and it has been a long time since we beat Norwich and Everton.

“It will be lovely to get back there and win a game again. It is going to be very, very important for us to try and overcome Sunderland get three points.

“It is a game we have to try and win. We have not played at Ewood Park for a month and that has been a long time.

"We want to excite the fans and want to get playing entertaining football to give us three points and to leave the fans happy.

“The basis of our success last season was keeping 13 clean sheetrs.

"Of course at the other end we want to improve as well because we haven’t been clinical enough.”