Michel Salgado celebrates his first goal for Rovers.

Headline copyright Richard Boardman (2009)

Rovers showed their class by brushing aside Championship strugglers Peterborough to avoid any cup embarrassment and progress through to the League Cup quarter finals.

Despite having players quarantined because of the swine flu illness that swept through the side, goals from Pedersen, Reid, Salgado, McCarthy and Kalinic ensured an entertaining cup tie ended in success for Rovers.

It’s great to see all of those names on the scoresheet.

Pedersen finally reminding us what he’s capable of from a dead ball situation. Reidy grabbing himself one, despite it being a penalty, after all that has been said in the press recently. Salgado has been far from impressive so far, but his goal that restored Rovers lead after we’d been pegged back twice was a lovely finish from a tight angle. Benni hasn’t featured much this season but his goal showed he’s still got the finishing touch. While £6-million future of Croatian football Nikola Kalinic finally got on the scoresheet (yes, another penalty) which should work wonders for his confidence!

It was also good to throw all those smug comments from Fergie Jnr well-and-truly back in his face.

On top of that, Sam was able to run the rule over a number of fringe players, whether he wanted to or not. Jason Brown, Michel Salgado, Phil Jones, Martin Olsson, Junior Hoilett, Brett Emerton, Steven Reid, Benni McCarthy and Nikola Kalinic all started the game.

I think the game was especially well summed up by The Times’s Tony Barrett:

When you have defied a bitterly cold Lancashire evening and a swine flu scare to attend a Carling Cup tie, the least you deserve is to be entertained, and the 8,419 hardy souls present at Ewood Park last night could not complain on that score.

Seven goals, two penalties and a sending-off were the edited highlights. Throw in one of the misses of this or any other season and a chant to live long in the memory — “Five-two and we’ve got the flu” — and it is hard to imagine anyone asking for more.

On to the next round and, unless Scunthorpe United pull of a major shock at the City of Manchester Stadium, there will be no non-Premiership clubs left in the competition. Assuming that’s the case, the best we can hope for is a home tie against Portsmouth I reckon.

Having said that, we’ll probably get Manchester United away.

One thing is certain about the quarter final draw. I’m willing to place a large bet on Manchester United, Chelsea (who will beat Bolton tonight) and the winner of Arsenal v Liverpool all avoiding each other in the draw for the next round!