BLACKBURN striker Egil Ostenstad today conceded Rovers' dreams of a return to Europe are fading fast after branding yesterday's 3-0 defeat at Aston Villa as a 'terrible performance'.

Villa gained suitable revenge for last month's 4-1 FA Cup defeat with a crushing win at Villa Park courtesy of goals from Dion Dublin (2) and Gareth Barry.

And now Ostenstad believes Rovers must attempt to salvage something from their season by defeating Sunderland in the Cup on Wednesday night after what can only be described as a disastrous couple of weeks.

"We were terrible. There's no other way to describe it," said Ostenstad.

"We couldn't defend and we didn't create anything going forward so nothing went right for us on the day but we were probably just as poor against West Ham on Wednesday.

"Perhaps we didn't look that bad on the night but then we weren't playing against a team who were as good as Villa and I don't know why things have suddenly gone wrong.

"We've got to get it going again because we are not doing anything right at the moment.

"Maybe we've got to get back to basics and learn to do things properly again.

"It's always difficult to put your finger on one thing that isn't working when results aren't going well.

"Obviously, we are missing a lot of quality players which doesn't help us at all because you need to have your best players playing.

"But, having said that, that's no excuse because the rest of us should still be good enough to do a job.

"So these are hard times right now and it's going to be very difficult for us to challenge for a top six spot from here."

Rovers have now gone over three months without an away win in the Premiership having last tasted victory on their travels at Highbury back in October.

And their second defeat in the space of five days on the road has seriously undermined any hopes of pushing for a top six spot which means Wednesday night's fourth round replay at the Stadium of Light has now taken on even greater significance.

"The FA Cup probably represents our last chance of Europe now unless we can get on a really good run in the league which I still think we are capable of doing when everyone is fit and ready," said Ostenstad.

"But we've got to improve a lot on the last couple of weeks in order for that to happen.

"Obviously, the manager wasn't happy at the end of yesterday's game but then there was nothing to be happy about after that performance.

"I think we only had really one real chance at goal whereas Villa had about 15 good chances."

Souness blamed sloppy defending as the reason for Rovers' latest defeat and he may now consider bringing back Henning Berg for the midweek trip to the North East after the Norwegian successfully came through a reserve outing last Thursday.