GRAEME Souness and his Blackburn players were given a talk on resuscitation techniques last week at their Brockhall training base in case they ever encountered a family emergency.

And Rovers fans will today be praying they paid close attention because the club's Premiership survival hopes are now in desperate need of reviving.

For, after crashing to a 10th defeat in a dozen outings, Souness and his beleaguered troops are currently in a critical condition as they lie at the football equivalent of death's door.

And unless they can breathe some new life into their flagging relegation battle quickly then it could get to the point when it's time to call in a priest to issue the last rites.

Jean Tigana's classy Fulham were the latest side to hammer another nail in Rovers' coffin after clinical strikes from Barry Hayles and the brilliant Steed Malbranque condemned the visitors to a fourth straight defeat.

And it's going to take more than some strong medicine from Souness to turn the current situation around because Rovers are in freefall and heading straight for Division One on this evidence.

"Of course I'm worried about the current situation but the alarm bells aren't ringing for me just yet because I believe we've got some good footballers and, on another day, we would have got something out of this game," said Souness.

"We had two great chances early on and, if one of those had gone in, it would have been a totally different game but that's how things go when you are down at the bottom.

"As for the two goals we did concede, though, they were very, very poor.

"For the first, the ball was crossed into the box, the linesman immediately put his flag up and saw it as a penalty, so I turned away and didn't see it hit the back of the net.

"But there was a feeling amongst one or two of our players that Barry Hayles had handled it. However, the way we conceded the second is one of the major reasons why we currently find ourselves in the situation we are in.

"We're not very good at sensing and smelling danger. We had a situation from our own free-kick where they suddenly had three or four players running forward with our midfielders chasing, so we've got to start sensing danger quicker than we did, otherwise it's going to be a very, very difficult last 12 games for us."

In all my time as Rovers reporter for this newspaper, I can't remember leaving a game feeling lower than I did after this, because everything that could go wrong did.

Rovers made a storming start, striking the woodwork twice in the opening 18 minutes, as they bossed proceedings against last season's First Division champions.

But, from the moment Hayles then hooked home the opener for the home side in the 31st minute, the confidence evaporated with alarming speed.

From that point on, things went from bad to worse in a second half performance which smacked of relegation.

The classy Malbranque added a killer second after Rovers were cut shreds by a lightning counter-attack which all started from their own free-kick.

To rub salt into the wounds, Tugay and Craig Short then saw yellow and red respectively, spelling the end of their Worthington Cup dreams in the process.

And, if that wasn't bad enough, then came the news that Bolton had beaten West Ham as well -- a result which meant Rovers slipped into the bottom three for the first time this season.

Now, the game at the Reebok in three weeks' time has taken on monster proportions.

Whilst Rovers are preoccupied by cup commitments, Wanderers and several of the other sides at the bottom could have played another two games by then, leaving the bottom three even further adrift -- a position Souness is all-too painfully aware of.

"We are in the bottom three now and I would imagine the teams who are already out of the FA Cup will probably play next week so the situation could get even worse for us," said the Rovers boss. "But life is full of tests.

"We find ourselves in a difficult situation -- not an impossible one -- but, as I keep telling my players, you never really

find out about people until their backs are firmly against the wall.

"Ours, now, are not far from being there and we'll have to show what we are made of, me included."

Just what is it about Fulham's Craven Cottage?

Rovers hit rock-bottom here last season, too, after a 2-1 defeat saw them slip down to 15th in the First Division table, prompting Souness to concede that the chance of automatic promotion had gone.

However, a run of six straights wins then turned their season completely around culminating in promotion, and just what wouldn't Souness give for a sequence of results like that right now?

If survival is to be achieved, then that same fighting spirit which sparked last season's revival must be rediscovered immediately.

The whole team's confidence has clearly taken a battering over the last two months and heads did drop after Fulham grabbed their second, but the situation is not yet hopeless.

Of Rovers' 12 remaining games, six are against sides in the bottom eight and each must be treated more like a Cup final than the imminent trip to Cardiff itself.

In many ways, the Worthington Cup cast its imposing shadow over this game. With Tugay and David Dunn both knowing a booking would rule them out the club's first major final in 42 years, Rovers lacked bite in the engine room

and Fulham took full advantage.

Together with international team-mates Giresse, Luis Fernandez and Michel Platini, Jean Tigana was part of French international midfield quartet who were known as 'the magic square' during their pomp and he's clearly trying to recreate something similar at the Cottage.

Rovers had started brightly enough as Andy Cole rattled the base of a post before Edwin Van Der Sar then somehow palmed a shot from Henning Berg onto the crossbar in the opening 18 minutes.

But Fulham survived and then effortlessly slipped through the gears themselves with the majestic Malbranque the man pulling the strings in midfield.

The pacey Steve Marlet struck a post with a bicycle kick but the reprieve didn't last long as the home side struck again in the 31st minute. Tugay lost possession in midfield, Marlet raced away down the right and, after a one-two with Hayles, his return cross found the Fulham striker, via a deflection off Henning Berg, who fired home.

That was a body-blow but the sucker punch came in the 64th minute. David Dunn fired a free-kick into the wall, Fulham broke with pace and precision, and there was Malbranque to slam home Marlet's right-wing cross from 12 yards.

To sum things up, Short then saw red for the third time this season in the last minute after catching Marlet with a stray elbow -- the ultimate kick in the teeth on a desperate day for the club.

FULHAM... 2 ROVERS... 0

Hayles 31, Malbranque 64

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