STELIOS shakes his head in bewilderment at the injustice of it.

Robbie Savage, a player who plays as if it is his duty to live up to his name and his reputation every time he steps on to a football field, has never been shown a red card in club football.

"I am surprised he has never been sent off," the Wanderers midfielder said as he was reminded of one of the game's more bizarre statistics.

"I don't understand it. He's a good player, he has talent and I just don't understand why he plays the way he plays."

Stelios knows he could be asking for trouble criticising one of the game's most volatile players ahead of what is expected to be a spicy derby duel at Ewood Park Saturdayevening.

But the Greece international has a reputation for straight talking. Ask him a question and he will offer an honest answer.

Ask him his opinion of a player and he will offer it and he makes no bones about it.

He just does not like the mop-haired Blackburn midfielder.

And at the very suggestion that Savage, who has ruffled feathers throughout his career, is just a spoiler, an enforcer who stops the opposition playing, he makes an instant comparison.

"Patrick Vieira stops," he said. "But not in this way.

"You don't have to tackle and try to smash the other guy's leg. He is a professional; he does the same job as we are doing.

"I don't like this type of play. Play football. It's a game, so try to enjoy the game."

Savage, who was booked 20 times in the 2001-02 season when he was playing for Leicester, picked up his ninth yellow card of the current campaign in Wednesday night's clash with Manchester United, when Rovers came from behind to share the honours 1-1 in the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final.

Yet his red card in Wales' World Cup qualifier against Northern Ireland last season remains the only dismissal of his professional career.

Nevertheless, Stelios believes his combative nature will catch up with him, sooner or later, and sees it as a factor Wanderers can turn to their advantage as they look to record a third successive derby triumph at Ewood Park.

"I try to focus on my game," he added, "because, if I notice the other player's game, I will lose my momentum, my concentration, so I don't care about any other players, I care about my team and how we will get a result.

"But, if a player like him has some weaknesses, you try to expose them and, because he's tackling a lot, maybe he will get sent off, if he carries on that way."

In two and a half years with Wanderers, the former Olympiakos star, who helped Greece triumph unexpectedly at the European Championships in Portugal in 2004, has learned that derby duels create special atmospheres.

But the passion of a Bolton-Blackburn affair is nothing compared to what he experienced in Athens when Olympiakos went head to head with Panathanaikos in some of the most fiercely-contested club games in Europe.

"Derbies are always passionate with yellow cards and red cards," he added.

"But in Greece the atmosphere is different, with the fireworks and everything. But you always have to win the battle first.

"Blackburn are a physical team but we are physical as well.

"We have strong boys who will be going there to get the three points.

"And we have had more time to rest because they played on Wednesday night, so every single one of us will have a little bit more energy than they will have.

"So I would like to think that would be a good advantage for us."