Blackburn's Friedel: We've only ourselves to blame

9:39am Monday 12th May 2008

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BRAD Friedel said he and his team-mates only had themselves to blame for blowing the chance to qualify for Europe.

A crushing 4-1 defeat at the hands of Birmingham City yesterday meant Rovers missed out on sixth position and a place in the Intertoto Cup.

"Other than the Coventry match, it's the most disappointing game of the season, especially because West Ham did us a favour at the end and we could have gone into sixth position," lamented Friedel, who made an uncharacteristic error that led to Birmingham's first goal.

"It wasn't so much losing, it was the manner that we lost.

"In the first half we never played and I think there were four mistakes in the first goal, including one from myself.

"Then we came back and I thought we were bossing the game.

"But we lost a second goal and from that point on, I think in the minds of probably a few of the players it was end-of-season time, which is the wrong approach to take in any game.

"But we have to bounce back from this, and we will."

With Aston Villa only managing a draw at Upton Park, Rovers would have claimed sixth place had they beaten Birmingham at St Andrew's.

However, after recovering from a poor start, which saw Mark Hughes' side fall behind as a result of Friedel's mistake, they then failed to build on Morten Gamst Pedersen's 49th minute equaliser and eventually slumped to one of their heaviest defeats of the season.

Referring to the first goal, Friedel said: "The ball moved but I'm not going to sit here and make excuses.

"These balls do move and they make it extremely difficult for goalkeepers; the movements on them when they occur late on, and the flight of the ball after we've already made up our minds, is what makes us look silly sometimes.

"That's what happened today but we still got ourselves back to 1-1 and had more than enough of the play to get a result out of that.

"The second goal was a really poor goal to concede defensively."

Despite the disappointment of missing out on Europe, Friedel insisted Rovers could still be proud of their achievements over the course of the season.

He added: "Finishing in seventh position, we'd be in Europe in any other season.

"It just so happens that one of the big four that automatically qualifies for the Champions League didn't make it to win the FA Cup final, which hasn't happened for so many years.

"Normally seventh position would have put us in there.

"I know we can kick ourselves. We had a chance to get into sixth today with results, but by the same token finishing seventh is not a bad haul."