FRUSTRATED Blackburn boss Graeme Souness claims his side were 'mugged' after Charlton sent Rovers crashing to a fourth straight home defeat in the Premiership last night.

Hermann Hreidarsson's first-half header proved enough to seal a 1-0 victory for the Addicks on another night of bitter disappointment for Rovers at Ewood.

Angry home supporters booed the team off at the final whistle, and Souness later admitted he shared the fans' frustrations as he faced up to one of the biggest challenges of his Blackburn career so far.

"The way I'm feeling at the moment it's a mixture of anger, frustration and feeling sorry for myself," said Souness.

"I'm extremely frustrated. It's not often I'm stuck for words but I am after that.

"We were mugged by Fulham, by Manchester City, and we've been mugged again here.

"It's the same old story. We shot ourselves in the foot. We made another mistake and gave away a goal from a set-piece.

"We even talked about that being the danger before the game but Lady Luck wasn't with us.

"My players deserved more than what they got but we can't start feeling sorry for ourselves.

"We are not the first team to find ourselves in the situation where a lot of our game is good but we are getting nothing for it. We need to keep believing and keep playing our football because it will change.

"Right now, though, I don't like the position we are in and I'm sure none of our supporters do either."

Rovers have now lost three on the bounce in the Premiership and their last win at Ewood was against Wolves on the opening day of the season.

Since then, they have won just one of their last 10 games in all competitions as confidence has taken a buffering on and off the pitch, but Souness has urged fans to show patience.

"I can fully understand the supporters being frustrated when we lose, especially in the manner in which we did (last night)," said Souness.

"They know that's another game we shouldn't have lost and they are entitled to express their opinion because they pay their money, so they can say what they like.

"But it's not a case of me being worried, and I'm not one to look for excuses, either.

"I believe we've got good players, we'll get points, we'll win games and have a decent season again.

"We've not done a lot wrong, we just went to sleep. It was Garry Flitcroft on this occasion but on other occasions, it's been other players.

"The ball didn't fall kindly for us, they took their only chance of the first half, and from then on we were always playing under pressure."

Souness also stood by his decision to start with Andy Cole as a lone striker up front in a 4-5-1 formation - a plan he later abandoned at half-time.

"The critics will say we started with just one striker but we felt that it went very well in the first half," said the Rovers boss, who also confirmed that Dwight Yorke had been left out of the 16 altogether for tactical reasons rather than any problems over fitness.

"We limited them to just one effort at goal and that's the one they scored with.

"If it had stayed 0-0 at half-time then I wouldn't have changed that system because I felt as though it was working."