AUSSIE defender Lucas Neill today set his sights on a top six finish even though he admitted to being bitterly disappointed by Rovers' 0-0 draw at the hands of Aston Villa yesterday.

Graeme Souness's side missed the chance to climb up to fourth in the Premiership table after dropping two vital home points following a lacklustre performance against lowly Villa.

It was the fifth time in seven outings that Rovers had failed to win at Ewood but Neill insists fans have no need to feel too down-hearted because he has recently detected a new determination to succeed which could lead the team to another UEFA spot next May.

"I've definitely sensed a change," said Neill. "It was first evident against Newcastle because no-one expected us to beat them in the way we did.

"Then, to go to a place like Arsenal and get something when literally everyone had written us off was fantastic and that just showed the true character of this team.

"Even at half-time in that game, everyone knew we were going to get something out of it, despite the fact we had given a goal away at such a bad time.

"Obviously, they dominated and we rode our luck a bit but the same thing couldn't be said of our performance at Celtic.

"I don't think anyone believed we could be as good as we were that night but now we've got to take that on and try and repeat those performances week in, week out, which is not going to be easy because we've set the standards and we've now got to keep them there."

"There's no reason whatsoever why we can't finish in the top six.

"Everyone seems to be beating everybody else at the moment and, with the players we've got, if we can keep some more clean sheets and keep the defensive side of things tight, then we've got a great chance."

That defensive side to Rovers' game was very much in evidence yesterday as both sides found chances at a premium in a dour encounter.

It was always going to be difficult for the home side to raise themselves, however, on the back of Thursday night's adventure in Glasgow.

"It was a very below-par performance. Myself and one or two of the others were simply not at the races," admitted Neill.

"Collectively, it was always going to be hard to repeat the performance of the other night at Celtic and we just needed a spark but it never came.

"Duffer tried his best to conjure something up in the second half and, maybe if we'd have got a goal then I think we would have been able to hold onto it.

"But at least we didn't lose it. We've played better than that before now and got nothing so, although it was ugly, at least we ground out a result because it's no so long ago that we would have lost games like that."

Those thoughts were also echoed by manager Graeme Souness who put Rovers' poor performance down to a European hangover.

"I don't think it's any co-incidence that we didn't play anything like we can do in either this game or the Tottenham game, which also took place on the Sunday after a match in Europe," said Souness.

"We looked a yard short for most of the game. We still created a lot of chances but we had a hard game on Thursday night, we didn't get to bed until after three o'clock on Friday morning, and we looked jaded as a result.

"If we'd played Tottenham and Villa without those games then I think we'd be sitting here with more than one point.

"But that's a fact of life and it's something we have to live with for as long as we are in the UEFA Cup.

"I tried to freshen it up by bringing Dunny back and through the various substitutions. But it was obvious that the people who had been stars the other night in Glasgow found it difficult to get themselves anywhere near that level again yesterday.

"Having said that, I've seen us lose games like that so I guess I should be happy."

Henning Berg was again absent yesterday with an Achilles injury picked up in training.