Blackburn Rovers v Leicester City
The FA Cup, Sixth Round
13 March, 13.05
Ewood Park



I’m not a particularly superstitious player but after my goal against Everton I will be wearing the same boots for Sunday’s FA Cup quarter-final against Leicester City!

Sometimes, players do feel comfortable with a certain pair of boots and you hope they don’t get ripped.

My first goal of the season had been a long time coming and it was quite an emotional moment for me at Goodison Park when it hit the back of the net.

I got about 25 text messages and loads of phone calls afterwards which was really nice and I managed to catch the highlights of the game on television later that night.

A few of the messages came from my old team-mates at Huddersfield who I’ve kept in touch with and it was very good of Jay Bothroyd (another Blackburn striker) to get in touch because he has an injury at the moment but had the goodwill to congratulate me.

I got on against Everton earlier than I expected because of an injury to Paul Dickov. Steven Reid played a great ball and I decided to hit it early because I could see Joseph Yobo coming across and he’s a quick defender.

I tried to surprise Nigel Martyn by hitting it as he was still moving out and obviously I was delighted to see it go in.

This week training has been enjoyable as you might have guessed but I know it’s only my first goal of the season and there’s plenty more for me to do to impress the manager Mark Hughes.

The nice thing about the goal was that it won us the game and it was a really big result.

For the first time, we look safe in the Premiership and we can go into Sunday’s game fully concentrating on The FA Cup.

I think Paul Dickov might be fit so I am hoping the manager plays a 4-4-2 and I get a starting place.

Steven Reid was fantastic at Goodison Park, I think it is the best I have seen him play. He was holding the ball and passing it around which encourages other players to make runs knowing that Steven is going to find them.

We have got quality in the side at Blackburn and we’re hoping that will prove important against Leicester who have a lot of players with past Premiership experience.

I’m really looking forward to it – and so are my shooting boots!