CHRIS Samba believes a refreshed Blackburn Rovers can again finish the season in style after insisting the ‘transition’ period has to come to an end.

The Blackburn Rovers skipper admits the drastic changes around Ewood Park over the past couple of months have been difficult to contend with but knows the past now has to be forgotten.

Rovers jetted off to Dubai on Monday for a short break, due to not being involved in the weekend’s FA Cup fixture list, and Samba believes it will provide the perfect opportunity to return with their batteries recharged and ready to push back up the table.

The purchase of Rovers by Venky’s has brought the shock sacking of Sam Allardyce, the appointment of Steve Kean as manager and a shift in playing style as well as the departure of popular chairman John Williams.

Kean’s era got off to a promising start with 10 points from his first seven league games but just one point from the last three has again left Rovers anxiously looking over their shoulders.

In the past three seasons, Rovers have averaged 15 points from their last 11 games of the campaign to cement good Premier League finishes and Samba is now bidding for more of the same.

He said: “It has been one of our things to finish the season strong.

"We have been in transition with the change of play, change of formation.

“So we need to work hard and show we can finish the season strong again.

“It has been a very difficult December and January with everything that has happened. The change of manager, the change of play.

"It is not such a happy time at the minute because we are not winning many games but there a lot of games left.

“But it is a good moment to put the legs up and take a bit of sun that we didn’t see much of this year.

"We will come back with fresh legs and working very hard because we need a win at the minute.”

Samba helped Rovers to their first clean sheet for three games in Saturday’s draw with Newcastle United, as they recovered from conceding four at Wigan the previous week.

The defender admits their defensive display was far from perfect though and is looking for an instant improvement on their Dubai return.

“I am happy to have a clean sheet but I have to say I am not really happy with the was we defended,” he told Rovers Player.

“A clean sheet is a clean sheet but there was a lack of communication at the back in terms of covering each other and we need to get back to the simple stuff and what was making us such a hard team beat.

“From a solid defence we can build on the attack but we need to organise a little bit better to prevent a counter and we need to use a little bit more experience at times.

“We are disappointed because we want to win but we need to build on that clean sheet. We are trying to get above the ball, we have a lot of penalty area entries and we try to score goals and try to play a little bit more.

“It is difficult because we need to find the right balance between the attack and the defence some times. It is not every time easy but we will work very hard.

“We had difficulty to find some width. We were trying to get Roque and Niko some chances in the box and trying to get Junior on the ball. It was difficult, it didn’t work very well.”

He added: “For me the most important type of football you can play is winning football.

"We will set about playing on the front foot and trying to entertain.

“But the main thing is to come off at the final whistle with the three points safely in the bag. ”