BLACKBURN Rovers must banish all thoughts of their pending UEFA Cup clash with Celtic when Aston Villa visit Ewood for a vital Premiership encounter tomorrow, writes ANDY NEILD.

Although Craig Short admits it was a major buzz to take part in the first leg of the club's Battle of Britain with the Glasgow giants on Thursday night, he insists he and his team-mates must now put all thoughts of Euro glory firmly on the back-burner.

And he is determined not to suffer a UEFA Cup hangover at the hands of a Villa side who recently went to Old Trafford and got a draw.

"It's back to the grind, I suppose," quipped Short.

"We had a good performance against Newcastle when we last played at home and they've recently done well at Manchester United so it's going to be another tough encounter.

"But then it's always difficult after a midweek game. Nevertheless, this is an important game for us because, as the manager keeps saying, the Premier League is our most important priority.

"We've made a good start -- certainly better than last year -- and we've got to keep that going and hope that we don't hit a bad patch like last season."

Short was heartened by Rovers' performance atParkhead in what he described as an unforgetable experience but his night was tarnished by Henrik Larsson's late goal which cost the team a clean sheet.

"The boss was chuffed to bits with the performance," said the veteran Rovers defender.

"It's an intimidating place to go but a great place to play football and that was probably one of our best performances this season without winning.

"It's disappointing not to have had a clean sheet because a lot has been made of our dodgy defence in the last couple of days so I was determined to stop them from scoring.

"But Brad didn't have too much to do and I thought we coped pretty well, generally, with what we had to.

"We wanted to put a good performance on. We didn't want to embarrass ourselves and let not just the club down but the Premier League as well.

"At the end of the day, playing in the UEFA Cup is a bonus and it gets you away from the pressures of the Premier League."