BLACKBURN keeper Brad Friedel today called for an end to the individual errors which have undermined Rovers' start to the season.

Friedel held his hands up and admitted he was at fault for Leeds' opening goal in Saturday's 2-1 defeat at Elland Road.

That was the latest in a long line of mistakes which have cost Graeme Souness's side dearly in the opening two months of the season.

Rovers have now lost four out of their last five games in all competitions and Friedel insists the only way he and his team-mates can put things right is through hard work on the training ground. "We are gifting soft goals. Different individuals are making mistakes every week and we need to cut them out, which we will," said Friedel.

"We'll work hard on the training pitch to do that but, for now, we've got to take it on the chin and deal with it.

"This season has been very crazy. We've shipped in goals this season which have been very uncharacteristic of Blackburn. We've always been a team that plays football, we've always exposed ourselves, and even on Saturday we could have been four or five down after 10 minutes.

"Then after that, we were the team who created most of the chances. There was just small patches in the game where we were having lapses and giving them far too many easy chances to score goals by making silly, uncharacteristic mistakes.

"But you always have a bad patch in a season and we are having ours now, hopefully."

Rovers left themselves with a mountain to climb after shipping two soft goals in the opening 27 minutes, both of which were scored by United midfielder Seth Johnson.

Friedel was at fault for the first when he failed to hold a shot from Mark Viduka, leaving Johnson to gobble up the rebound.

Then the Rovers defence missed several opportunities to clear the danger in the build up to the second goal before Johnson pounced again.

"I hold my hand up for the first goal and then whether it was a handball before the play even started for the second goal or not, I don't know, but we were still sloppy in clearing our lines," said Friedel.

"So we gifted them two goals and we've been doing that a lot this season.

"When you've got to come back from that it's difficult. We fought, and fought and fought and when we got our goal we knew that we'd be on the front foot and they'd be on the back foot.

"But it was the 85th or 86th minute when we scored so there wasn't enough time left.

"It's a long season. I know the newspapers might want to make a big deal of it but we are not going to make a big deal of it, we are going to work hard on the training pitch to get it right.

"People are talking about us having a bad start to the season but it wasn't too long ago that Leeds were in the Champions League and they still have a lot of those players there."

Rovers boss Graeme Souness was also disappointed with the manner in which his side conceded the two goals but he also felt referee Uriah Rennie failed to spot two offences in the build up to Johnson's second goal.

"Although the TV doesn't show it clearly, I felt there was a handball by David Batty just prior to their second goal," said Souness.

Souness also confirmed that Lorenzo Amoruso missed Saturday's game through injury.

"He had some fluid taken off his knee then in training on Friday he felt a little bit sore and that's why he didn't play."

Meanwhile, Rovers' reserves are in action against Newcastle in the North East tonight (kick-off 7pm).

Alan Murray's side crashed 3-1 against Aston Villa on their last outing last week so they will be looking to bounce back with an improved performance.

The game is being played at Kingston Park and Rovers' squad is: Yelldell, Peers, Pelzer, Donnelly, Taylor (Michael), Bruce, Watt, Johnson, Barker, Nelson, Morgan, Corvino, Renton, Peter, Weaver, Taylor (Andy), Byrom.