BARCA coach Carlos Rexach believes Rovers are ready to make an impact in the Premiership next season following their 3-2 victory at a rain-soaked Ewood yesterday.

Mark Hughes's dramatic late winner condemned the Catalan club to their first friendly defeat of the summer.

And Rexach afterwards admitted he was hugely impressed by Graeme Souness's side.

"Obviously, you never like to lose a game in pre-season but Blackburn proved they had the motivation and determination to win," said Rexach.

"They were what I would call a typical English team. They were very direct, very aggressive, and whenever they got crosses in they looked dangerous, as proved by the fact they scored three goals as well as creating two or three other good opportunities.

"For our part, though, I thought we relaxed after scoring the opening goal but even before that I felt the whole tempo of our play was too low.

"Maybe some of our players were thinking more about playing for their countries next week, I don't know.

"But if you don't play at least 200 per cent per game then you may as well forget it."

Rexach also heaped praise on Hughes after the Rovers striker climbed off the bench to score the all-important winner against his old club.

"Mark Hughes is a dangerous player and he doesn't need many opportunities to score a goal as he proved today, scoring from the first chance he had.

"So we could not do much about that but I felt we weren't aggressive enough for the first."