Fire us to the premiership!

Souness celebrated his first anniversary in the Ewood hotseat with a rousing 2-0 victory over promotion rivals Birmingham City at St Andrews last night.

And the Bent-Jansen combination did the business once again as Bent's 18th goal of the campaign set Rovers on their way to a fourth straight League victory.

"Marcus has been fantastic for us since he joined," said Souness.

"We've tried to protect both him and Matt up until this point with Mark Hughes coming in and doing his bit, which has taken the strain off both of them at times.

"But, really, their time to stand up and be counted is over these next 12 games.

"I think they really could be an outstanding partnership for the future.

"They've really not played many 90 minutes together so far but, if they keep showing the same enthusiasm to learn, then they could become a formidable partnership.

"Both of them have everything. And it's an important combination for us."

Last night's result saw Rovers move to within striking distance of second-placed Bolton.

But, though Souness was overjoyed with his side's performance, he stressed the need to keep everyone's feet on the ground.

"It was a nice way to celebrate the anniversary," said Souness. "I've got a group of players that were criticised on many occasions for being fat cats and I even read that again yesterday in one paper.

"But I think my players showed last night that they really want it.

"I thought we were very impressive and we battledvery hard against a team who were in our faces. "Most of the football was played by us on what was a very difficult surface.

"But the biggest thing was the togetherness we showed and, if we can maintain that over the remainder of the season, then we've got a chance.

"They humped it and lumped it against us but I thought Craig Short and Henning Berg dealt with everything that was thrown at us.

"I can only think of the one shot Brad had to save in the second half.

"But we are not getting carried away.

"We did well because we went to one of our biggest rivals and turned them over with a bit of style.

"However, there's still a lot of football to be played and we wouldn't be the first team to fall apart on the run-in to promotion or the run-in to winning something.

"So it's vital we keep our cool and keep the players' feet on the ground."

After Bent's opener, Damien Duff then wrapped up the points with Rovers' second shortly after the break.

The night was marred, however, when Birmingham defender Darren Purse was sent off for deliberately elbowing Jansen in the last minute.

"I must admit I didn't see that," said Souness.

"I believe some of the cameras had it but I didn't see it so I can't comment on it."