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Blackburn calling "It really came out of the blue. I got a call from Bolton on Thursday afternoon to say that they had accepted a bid from Blackburn and the move was sealed soon after that. To be honest, there was no looking back or second thoughts after I got the call, Bolton are an excellent club with some great facilities and a stadium that's second to none, but Blackburn are even bigger in stature and I was really interested in talking to them." Talking the talk "Once the fee is agreed, you meet your prospective new manager for talks. You want to use this time to check that the club will be playing a good style of football that you feel you can fit in with, that they are ambitious and that they have some quality players and a good manager. For all those things you don't get much better than Blackburn, so it was pretty straightforward once I went to meet the manager. I met Roy Hodgson at about nine o'clock in the evening and by 11 o'clock the deal was pretty much sealed." Decision time "Roy Hodgson has an excellent record and he was a big factor in me coming here. I was also looking forward to playing with quality strikers like Chris Sutton, Kevin Davies and Kevin Gallacher. I'd played at Ewood a couple of times so I knew that Rovers were a huge club. You want time to say goodbye to everyone at your old club but I didn't get a chance. But I went to Bolton on the Sunday when they played Sunderland and spoke to the lads and then I met a few for lunch later in the week." Fighting fit? "On Friday I had to have a medical. The doctors check you out from head to toe to make sure you're in good working order. They put you through stretches and movements, paying attention to any areas you might have had problems with in the past - broken bones, ligament damage, that sort of thing. It's not too strenuous. Then I had some blood tests and went to Ewood to sign the papers." Settling in "It was good for me that, like Bolton, Blackburn were in the north-west and I didn't have to worry about finding a house. It does take time to find your feet though. My first day with the players was at the Wimbledon game that Saturday. I didn't know too many of them and I'm not the sort who starts shouting their mouth off on the first day. But they're a great bunch of lads here, really welcoming, and I feel like part of the furniture already." Taking the field "The first time I felt like a Rovers player was once I had played for the club. I came off the bench for 15 minutes against Wimbledon. A few of the lads said I'd done well, which was great. I got my first goal in the 3-2 defeat by Man. United. It was good to get off the mark, but disappointing that we didn't win. We're not in a great position right now, but we've just got to stick at it, not panic and pick up some points in the next five or six games. I'm sure we can do that."
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