Make Ewood a fortress - Friedel

GOALKEEPER Brad Friedel is urging his team-mates to transform last season's dreadful home form by making Ewood Park a fortress.

Blackburn Rovers host Aston Villa tomorrow looking for their seventh consecutive unbeaten Premiership home game, a far cry from the Ewood agony that dogged them for most of last season.

And after Monday's 1-0 defeat at Charlton left Rovers with no points from four away game this season, Friedel is emphasising the importance of getting it right on their own turf.

Tomorrow will see them going for their second consecutive victory in front of their own fans after the 1-0 win over Portsmouth in Mark Hughes's first game in charge a fortnight ago.

"We're really looking forward to playing Villa," said Friedel. "We saw Palace nearly turn them over last week and we're really looking forward to playing them at home.

"Hopefully, we can keep our home form going. We haven't been beaten in a while at Ewood, whereas last year we had a difficult run at home.

"But when you take into account what happened at the end of last season, that's six games where we haven't lost at home now so hopefully we can turn Ewood into a fortress under the new manager and then we'll see what happens.

"All we need is a couple of wins on the bounce and we could suddenly be up to eighth or ninth in the table."

Continuing the good home run is something boss Hughes is also calling for to instil some confidence into his struggling side.

However, despite the embarrassing Carling Cup exit and loss to Charlton, he has been encouraged by what he's seen in his first three games in charge

"We had a good start against Portsmouth," said Hughes." It was important to make some kind of statement in our first game, which we did.

"Then obviously against Bournemouth last week we didn't have our strongest team out just because I wanted to have a look at other players so there were reasons behind that result.

"And then against Charlton I felt we deserved to get something out of the game.

"I think it's important when players are maybe a little bit down on confidence that you get the right response when they go behind in games and I got that on Monday so that was pleasing.

"On another day we would have won that game so we've got plenty to work on but we've also got plenty to work with."

Blackburn have only managed five goals in seven Premiership games so far.