WHEN I devoted the whole of last week's column to doing the double' over Manchester United this season I knew I left myself open to questions as to why I'd omitted to mention the subsequent West Brom defeat.

My own feelings at the time were that it was a classic case of after the Lord Mayor's show' and surely given the exertions of the United game it would be just a blip'.

The Everton game would be around soon enough and normal service would surely be resumed.

Unfortunately, where I gave myself licence to ignore one defeat I can't overlook two in a row.

Where one defeat may be viewed upon as a blip' given how the season has gone for us so far this now has the makings of a fully fledged crisis!!

Okay, I exaggerate a little but it just goes to show how far we've come in such a short space of time that the two league defeats we've just suffered repeat the worst run we've had this season.

On the face of it they were games where points could and should have been gained.

For the first time I can remember under Hughes the players have been second best for workrate.

I can't put my finger on the reason why this has happened and I'm pretty sure that the management down at Ewood are tearing their hair out trying to figure it out too.

For a good few weeks now all the talk emanating from everyone at Rovers has been about Europe being a realistic ambition.

We as fans have certainly been quite happy to embrace this as it sure as hell beats the relegation fights we've become accustomed to.

Unfortunately, saying and doing are two entirely different things and it would appear that the players as a group have stopped doing the things that have got them into this position in the first place.

Nevertheless, if there's one fixture that you'd want to pull you out of a slump it's undoubtedly Sunderland at home. I'm sure the players will have been made to know what's expected of them in no uncertain terms over the past few days and the management and fans will expect a big improvement.

Mid-table mediocrity may have been considered Utopia at the start of the season but it'd be such a shame if that's all we had to show for our efforts in May.