Sunday 8 March 2015 15:38, UK
Gary Bowyer has hailed Liverpool as the "most impressive team in the Premier League at the moment" ahead of Blackburn's daunting FA Cup trip to Anfield.
Bowyer knows the odds for the quarter-final are heavily weighted in their opponents' favour, and would have been even before Liverpool hit the run of form that has seen them win nine of their last 11 Premier League games.
"It's David vs Goliath," said Bowyer.
"Nobody's giving us a chance outside of our dressing room.
"I think they're the most impressive team in the Premier League at the moment and the football that they're playing is fantastic. Obviously full credit to the manager for the way he changed his formation.
"We've studied the videos, we've come up with a gameplan, and we've worked with the players on it. We'll go and take the challenge to Liverpool.
"We've been very organised and very disciplined in the previous meetings with the Premier League teams, and then of course along the way you need a bit of luck.
"The mood's one of excitement and rightly so. The lads have earned the right to play at Anfield with the performances in the previous rounds."
Bowyer said his team will go into the match high on confidence, and they can certainly take great encouragement from their performances in the last two rounds.
Neither Swansea nor Stoke enjoyed their visits to Ewood Park, with Blackburn racking up seven goals across the fourth and fifth rounds.
Although Anfield presents a major step up, it is a ground that holds the most special of memories for Rovers.
Twenty years ago in May, Blackburn celebrated the best moment in their history when they lifted the Premier League trophy at the Merseyside ground.
The achievement will be marked by a minute's applause in the 20th minute on Sunday as a tribute to their late benefactor Jack Walker.
Bowyer said of the cup run: "Financially it's been excellent for the club at a time when we've got a transfer embargo and money's tight.
"For the players and the staff and supporters, it's been a great journey so far. But we want it to continue.
"For the supporters it's going to be a great day out. They're going to bask in the memory of 20 years ago. I think there's something planned in the 20th minute, which is going to be really good, but the players are going to do a job."
Bowyer is also taking pride in earning positive headlines for Blackburn after the most turbulent of times.
Rovers became a club at war with itself following the takeover in 2010 by Venky's and less than two years later they were relegated from the top flight.
They had got through three managers in a season and were heading towards another relegation when Bowyer, who joined Blackburn's backroom staff in 2004, began another stint as caretaker manager in March 2013.
His reward for stabilising the club was to be given a chance as permanent boss, and two years later Rovers are finally a football story again.
Bowyer said: "The supporters have been through a hell of a lot over the last couple of years but we're starting to put foundations in place, we've done that over the last 20 months, and we're starting to make progress. We've got to continue that.
"It's a measure of how far we've come already the fact that we're at this stage of the competition, we've got some very talented footballers and they're going to excel in that environment (at Anfield)."
