Petrovic raring to get on the road with Rovers

Radosav Petrovic is hoping to make his Blackburn Rovers debut at the weekend against Aston Villa and aims to contribute his share of goals from midfield this season.

Rovers announced the signing of Serbia international Petrovic from Partizan Belgrade last week after he received a work permit, although with certain formalities of the transfer still to be tied up, the 22-year-old was ineligible to play in the 2-1 defeat to Wolves on Saturday.

Petrovic now has his sights set on the Villa game, having already established a goal target for himself as he prepares for his first campaign in English football.

Asked whether he would feature in the match at Villa Park on Saturday, Petrovic told the Lancashire Telegraph: "I want to but we will see. Everybody knows that Blackburn Rovers is a very big club with a very big history and I'm very happy to be here.

"The Premier League is the best in the world and every little boy's dream is to play in the Premier League.

"I want to play for Blackburn and win in every match if it's possible.

"I play in the centre and last year scored 10 goals. For Blackburn I want to score five or six goals." Petrovic added.

Raul, the in-demand former Real Madrid striker who turned down a move to Blackburn on Tuesday, has not travelled to Finland with his club Schalke 04 ahead of their Europa League play-off qualifying tie with HJK Helsinki.

The 34-year-old would be unable to play for another club in European competition if he appeared against HJK, but Schalke claim he has been rested ahead of this weekend's Bundesliga meeting with Mainz.

"We did not want to run the risk of Raul getting injured because we will play on an artificial pitch in Helsinki," said Schalke's general manager, Horst Heldt.