Boss Sam Allardyce will use Monday night's FA Cup third round tie against Blyth Spartans as the perfect opportunity to assess the strength of the squad.

The new Rovers manager has, barring the injury to David Dunn, kept with the same squad of players for his first three games in charge, but with a cup match at Spartans' Croft Park on Monday night, he'll use the game to see other first team players in action.

"I've got to look at a squad that I have inherited, and I've got to find out whether a few players are good enough to be in this squad or not," admitted Allardyce.

"A good indication of that will be by playing them on Monday night and letting them show me what they can do so that I can have an assessment of them.

"We are forced with some changes of course with the injuries and we are forced with two suspensions to Andre and Ryan. So we will have a few players out. And then of course I will rest a few players."

One player that Allardyce is looking forward to seeing in action is midfielder Vince Grella. The Australian international's short time at Ewood Park has been disrupted by injuries, but now back in training he could come into consideration.

"Also for the first time for a long time Vince is fit and he played in a training game on Wednesday so it will be good to get him in a team situation to see how he does," added Allardyce. "And like I said to look at other squad players that have played this season for Blackburn Rovers but haven't played for me yet.

"None of us want to get knocked out, but as a manager you have got to make changes and you have got to rotate your squad and this is an ideal situation.

"It is against a team that play non-league football, we are a group of professionals in the Premier League and we should have enough to beat them.

"But that is going to be down to good preparation and a positive mental attitude on the night in the terms of producing our ability to beat Blyth Spartans."

David Dunn, Roque Santa Cruz and Steven Reid are absent through hamstring, calf and knee injuries respectively, whilst Andre Ooijer and Ryan Nelsen serve one-match bans. Danny Simpson could come back into reckoning after missing the last two games with a calf strain.

Despite this, Allardyce has a large squad to select from: Robinson, Brown, Bunn, Khizanishvili, Kane, Samba, Simpson, Warnock, Olsson, Emerton, Judge, Tugay, Grella, Vogel, Mokoena, Andrews, Pedersen, Treacy, Roberts, McCarthy, Villanueva and Derbyshire.