ROVERS boss Mark Hughes insists his side have surpassed their targets so far this season - despite going through a recent sticky patch.

Rovers have won just one of their last six Premier League games and head to relegation-threatened Wigan this afternoon aiming to get back to winning ways.

Last Sunday's 1-0 home defeat to West Ham raised question marks over Rovers' ability to last the distance in the race for a coveted European berth.

But Hughes was happy with his side's position as they head into the frantic Christmas period.

He said: "If you look at the quality of teams around us, and the amount of money that every other team is spending in comparison to us, then we are doing remarkably well.

"We've set points targets and we've exceeded those targets in the first two parts of the season.

"The third phase is now upon us and we're still ahead of the game.

"We've discussed what targets we're after in terms of points over the Christmas and New Year period and the players know exactly what I expect."

Hughes will be boosted by the return of Ryan Nelsen and David Bentley for the trip to the JJB, and the Rovers chief said he was looking for a reaction from his players. - as they did after their 4-0 Ewood thumping at the hands of Aston Villa.

He added: "We're looking to bounce back. We had a good reaction after the disappointment of the Aston Villa game and we had a good performance against Newcastle.

"The performance against West Ham, certainly in the first half, wasn't what I was looking for. In the second half we were better, we created chances and on another day we would have converted one of them.

"But we just need to get back to getting clean sheets because we will always create chances in games."

And Hughes admitted he was delighted to have Bentley in particular back in contention for the trip to the Latics.

He said: "David has been playing exceptionally well and is one of our most consistent performers, so when he goes out of the side then we will miss his influence," said Hughes.

"It's fair to say that there were some circumstances last week where we would have benefited if David had been on the park.

"But he would have benefited from the break, even if it was enforced, as he's been one of the only players I'd not been able to give a rest to."

When Hughes took the Ewood Park hot-seat in September 2004, Rovers were languishing at the wrong end of the Premier League table, So he can empathise with the position his old Manchester United team-mate Steve Bruce finds himself in.

He said: "It will take a little bit of time to stamp his mark on the side but obviously that will happen sooner rather than later. They are in a situation that needs addressing and turning around.

"It takes a lot of hard work when you're in that situation. You can have a great performance and draw against a good team but when you look at the table you may well have dropped a position because someone else has won.

"You really have to win games when you're at the bottom to be able to shift yourselves out of the situation you find yourselves in.

"It becomes more difficult when teams are lacking a little bit of confidence and haven't won as many games as they ought to."