HOME is where the heart is - and it's also where the points are according to Graeme Souness.

The Rovers boss is urging his relegation-threatened players to make Ewood Park a fortress again, just as they did last season when they gained promotion from the Nationwide First Division.

Of the 23 games Rovers played in the league at home last season, they lost only three, winning 15 and drawing five.

Rovers were unbeaten at home for the first three months of the season before seemingly losing confidence and suffering a series of damaging defeats.

The 3-0 defeat of Aston Villa on Tuesday was only the second Premiership win at Ewood since the 7-1 thrashing of West Ham in October.

But with morale high after the Worthington Cup triumph in Cardiff, Souness sees the five remaining home games - starting with Wednesday's crucial clash with fellow strugglers Ipswich - as Rovers' best chance of getting out of trouble.

"If we're going to stay in this league we have got to win our home games," he said.

"We had a massive one on Tuesday and we've got another massive one coming up against Ipswich next Wednesday.

"If we can win our home games and get the odd result away from home, we'll be in this league next season.

"That shouldn't be beyond us because our home form was very good at the start of the season."

Souness is totally focussed on survival and has put his own contract talks on hold until the end of the season.

This month sees the second anniversary of Souness at the helm and his contract expires at the end of next season.

Rovers officials have indicated that a new offer will be on the table and Souness has already talked of his desire to see out his career at Ewood Park.

"If they want to keep me, that's great because I want to stay," said Souness.

"I will sit down with John Williams, at the end of the season to talk about that.

"It's something to leave until the end of the season, which was the plan we spoke about at Christmas anyway."

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland international Damien Johnson says he is excited at the prospect of re-launching his league career at Birmingham after ending his unhappy time at Rovers.

Johnson passed his medical yesterday morning and has signed a three-and-a-half year contract with Steve Bruce's First Division side.

The midfielder is relishing the chance of playing regular first-team football after being frozen out by Souness.

The end came for Johnson when Souness told him he would not be renewing his contract, which was due to expire at the end of the season.

Rovers accepted a nominal fee of around £150,000 for Johnson, who rejected an approach from Nottingham Forest, and he is delighted with the move.

"I had been at Blackburn since I was a trainee and although some people may think it was a wrench to leave, it wasn't," he said.

"I didn't have the best of relationships with the manager and I'm glad to get away to be honest.

"I'm delighted to sign for Birmingham. I was impressed with Steve Bruce and Birmingham are a club with Premiership ambitions. I still think the club can make the play-offs this season and I think the manager believes that as well."

The 23-year-old was set to make his debut in today's crunch clash with Wolves at St Andrews and Bruce has added him to his squad.

Johnson said: "That would be some debut! We'll have to see, though. I haven't played a lot of games recently and my match fitness isn't as good as I'd like it to be."