ANGRY Blackburn boss Graeme Souness admitted he read the riot act to his players after Rovers crashed out of the FA Cup at the hands of Birmingham City.

The Blues avenged last month's heavy defeat in the Premiership with a thumping 4-0 victory at St Andrews.

And Souness conceded Rovers got exactly what they deserved after being 'out-fought and out-played' by a fired-up City side.

"I'm very disappointed because we didn't show any great desire to meet the challenge head on," blasted Souness.

"We tried to warn our players that the challenge would come in an aggressive manner because we embarrassed this team four weeks ago.

"We'd beaten them 4-0 on their own pitch, they wouldn't have liked that and they wouldn't have liked reading what was said about them in the papers the following day and the day after that.

"But unfortunately for us we didn't get that message across to enough of our players because very few of them won their individual battles and collectively we lost a game that we thoroughly deserved to lose.

"We were out-fought and out-played and I have no complaints about the result.

"We were beaten by a better team and it's puzzling but at the same time that's the interesting, intriguing and frustrating part of playing football.

"We can come here and play so well four weeks ago, we can go to Newcastle last week and play so well, and then we've come here and not taken part in the game, which is very disappointing from our point of view.

"But I don't want to take anything away from Birmingham because they showed a great desire to win the game and all credit to them."

Rovers found themselves on the back foot from the moment Clinton Morrison fired City into a 23rd minute lead.

Stephen Clemence then added a second before the break before second half strikes from Mikael Forssell and Bryan Hughes completed the rout

"We were poor throughout the game I felt," said Souness.

"We handed the initiative to Birmingham early on and credit must go to them because they grasped it with both hands.

"In the end, we got absolutely nothing from the game and we deserved to get nothing."

Now Souness must pick his players up as they prepare to make a quick return to the Midlands for a vital Premiership encounter with Wolves on Wednesday night.

"It's a case of wiping our noses and getting on with it. We've been punched where it hurts and we'll have to see what reaction we get on Wednesday now because that has become an enormous game for us," said the Rovers boss.