Blackburn Rovers 1 Leeds United 2

GRAEME Souness refused to blame his players as they crashed to their 10th Premiership home defeat of the season against Leeds United on Saturday.

The 2-1 loss allowed Leeds to draw level on points with Blackburn, whose superior goal difference is the only thing keeping them out of the bottom three.

A point for Portsmouth at Charlton also took them to 31 points with a game in hand on Rovers, whose manager did his best to remain upbeat following another deeply frustrating afternoon at Ewood.

It got off to a disastrous start when Steve Caldwell headed Leeds ahead after only 85 seconds, a 1-0 lead they retained until the 88th minute when Mark Viduka wrapped up the points.

Craig Short nodded in his first goal of the season form Brett Emerton's corner and although it was too little too late, Souness was pleased with the way his team fought to the finish.

He said: "Criticise me as much as you want but don't turn up here and have a go at the team because that's going to get us nowhere.

"They did enough to get something form the game today but two major, major, major incidents from our point of view decided it.

"We gave away the first goal then we should have had a penalty, but he's not the first referee to miss a penalty here this season.

"If you look at our season it's been a case of either giving early ones away or late ones away and it's cost us dearly. At the start of the game we were always going to be a wee bit nervous and after two minutes we were extremely nervous.

"We've gifted them a goal and made it so much more difficult for ourselves at that point. It was a great start for them, a wonderful start, a dream come true. You go to a team that are down there with you, you know they're going to be nervous, you know the crowd will be nervous and then you are gifted a goal. What a wonderful start.

"But to be fair to my players I don't think any of them gave up, I don't think they stopped wanting the ball and they had a go."

Souness did admit he was concerned with his side's lack of creativity but is confident they can battle their way out of the mire.

He added: "We had lots of the ball, and we huffed and puffed. Our quality at times wasn't up to scratch and we didn't make the goalkeeper work hard enough for the amount of ball we had.

"But I can't fault them for effort and as long as we retain that we're in there with a fighting chance.

"I believe every fight I'm involved in I'm going to win and I believe my players believe that as well. It will sort out the men from the boys, so bring on the next game."

This comes tonight at Fulham, who did Blackburn a favour on Saturday when they beat Leicester 2-0.