NO complaints from Brian Kidd who was convinced the demands of a testing seven-day spell had taken a heavy toll of his depleted squad and was the main reason for their crushing defeat at the hands of an effervescent Sheffield Wednesday side.

It was, in many respects, a game too far after the draining midweek clash at Chelsea.

"We were just a tired team," said the Rovers boss.

"The effort the players have put in over the past two months has been tremendous.

"Some have been playing with wee bits of injuries as well but we were definitely running on empty against Wednesday.

"I'm not panicking, their effort has been first class.

"They've made their mistakes honestly, it's not a perfect world and I can't thank them enough for what they have put in.

"The Premiership is physically demanding, it's about power and strength and you can't keep going to the well all the time.

"These things happen, especially with the couple of weeks we have just had.

"We played at Villa, then there were the internationals and, after we went to Newcastle last Sunday, we had a hell of a game against Chelsea which was physically demanding.

"It does catch up with you and we were up against a good Sheffield Wednesday team with some fine players."

Wednesday boss Danny Wilson said: "I thought it was going to be very difficult before we came here. With the run Blackburn are having I am sure they were looking forward to the game but we knew we had to do the job in the first 20 minutes and we did.

"We got a good goal and, after that, I thought it was one-way traffic. We passed the ball exceedingly well and could possibly have had more on the goal tally. But we're happy with it."

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