MARK Hughes has warned his players they have to get better defensively after another horror show cost them dearly against Arsenal last night.

Four days after crashing 5-3 to Wigan Athletic at the JJB Stadium, Rovers' defensive failings came back to haunt them once again as they lost 3-2 to the Gunners in a Carling Cup quarter-final tie of unrelenting drama.

Trailing 2-0 after 29 minutes, Rovers then fought back to get on level terms, courtesy of two goals from the outstanding Roque Santa Cruz.

However, as the tie went into extra-time, Arsenal, who by that point had been reduced to 10-men, capitalised on more poor defending to fashion a winner, which was scored by their Croatian international Eduardo.

"We are disappointed with the way we defended for all of their goals," lamented a frustrated Hughes.

"At the moment, we are finding it very difficult to give ourselves a platform which enables us to win games.

"Once again, we found ourselves in a similar situation to the one we were in at the weekend.

"We are conceding too many goals from poor situations, and then showing great courage and determination to get ourselves back on level terms again.

"But the effort we are expending to get back on level terms again is ultimately costing us later on in games.

"Because of the effort we are having to put in, we then have a tendency to switch off and teams can capitalise on that, and I think that happened once again.

"It's a frustration at the moment because we are working hard on a daily basis to try to address the issues we have defensively.

"But we seem to be confronted with situations that should be dealt with better, and those situations are being capitalised on and it's hard to take."