ANGRY Blackburn boss Graeme Souness hopes last night's bore-draw with Leicester City will act as a wake up call to his Premiership new boys after Rovers passed up the chance to go eighth in the table.

After scoring 10 goals on their previous two outings, expectations had soared at Ewood Park, both on and off the pitch, ahead of the visit of the struggling Foxes.

But Rovers fans were brought crashing back down to earth after Leicester ground out their first point under new boss Dave Bassett.

And Souness refused to make excuses for his players, branding their performance in a dire 0-0 draw as the worst of the season so far.

"Without a doubt, that's the worst we've played all season. It was a really horrible game," rapped Souness.

"There's probably several reasons why we struggled so badly but the best I can give is we maybe have some players who now think they're Premier League players and good players in the Premier League at that.

"I don't think we worked as hard as we could have done last night.

"Give Leicester credit -- they're a team struggling at the bottom of the league and they came and worked harder than us for most of the game.

"But we never got anywhere near the kind of form we've been showing this season which is disappointing and I just want this game to be forgotten.

"I wasn't surprised by them. We played against a team full of honest, hard-working players and we weren't at the races.

"As the home side, it's up to us to go after them but we just didn't do that which is very frustrating.

"I can't remember ever saying that about this team before.

"In the 18 months I've been here, I can't recall saying we never excited the crowd, we didn't entertain our fans and we never looked like winning the game.

"But that's the reality."

Not only was Souness disappointed by his own side's display, he was also furious with the performance of referee Rob Styles, who managed to book eight players, including Craig Hignett for attempting to take a quick free kick.

"What can you say about the referee? I thought he had a great game," said Souness, sarcastically.

"David Beckham did something very clever against us by scoring a very good goal through some bright play and Craig Hignett then tried to do the same and got a yellow card.

"So I thought the ref had a fantastic match."

Now Rovers must focus on trying to secure their first away win of the season at Southampton on Saturday with two tough games against Liverpool and Chelsea looming on the horizon.

Meanwhile, Foxes boss Bassett felt his side had come closest to taking all three points.

Striker Ade Akinbiyi was unlucky not to be the match-winner from one chance that fell his way and Bassett said: "I have seen rebounds like that when the ball has gone straight in the net, but it has not quite happened for Ade.

"Full credit to him, he kept going and near the end he caused Blackburn quite a few problems.

"Unfortunately he just couldn't get the final touch or finish that would have made him a hero."