A DEFIANT Chris Samba insists Blackburn Rovers can still shock the Premier League – by turning their relegation fears into an unlikely top 10 finish.

With just nine points separating ninth-placed Fulham and 18th placed Stoke, the Rovers defender believes there is still the potential to finish the season well above expectations as he keeps his sights firmly up the top-flight table.

Refusing to be downbeat after Saturday’s humiliating Emirates Stadium experience, the Congolese defender is already pointing to a tightly bunched bottom half of the table as reason for optimism.

He insists a successful next few weeks in home games against West Ham and Tottenham would see the table make for very different reading – as they look to salvage some pride from a troubled season.

He said: “We know everything is in our hands. It is not about other teams or other positions, we just have to win enough games to stay up.

“Maybe we can be surprised in a good way by where we can finish. Now we have our destiny in our hands so it is up to us.

“You can still finish 10th or 9th , that is the hope for us. It has been a difficult year for us but the end of the day you could be 9th having been in the relegation battle. It is a strange season.

“We will look in front of us and the focus is that 11th place is just three points above us. We can almost touch it so now we look to get there in the next game. We want our next journey to be that top 10.”

Saturday’s 4-0 mauling did though quickly bring any Rovers fan who had got carried away by their midweek win at Fulham back to earth with a bump.

Sitting just one point and three places above the drop zone with just nine games remaining leaves their Premier League status anything but guaranteed – a fact Samba is well aware of.

He said: ““There are so many teams in trouble, anything can happen from 10th place to the bottom three.

“It is a battle all the way to 10th place. We are only six points from the bottom though so everyone has to watch their back or suddenly you could be going down.

“We don’t look back and we won’t look back. To be good professionals we have to have targets and we can’t look behind.

“I think it will be very tight on the points. The Fulham win was really important because you can see we are only a few points from the relegation and just a few points from 10th, so just two good results and things can twist very quick.”

While the first to admit Rovers were very much second best against Arsenal at the weekend, Samba insists the win at Fulham a few days earlier does in some way make up for the disappointment.

“Manchester United didn’t win at Arsenal,” he said.

“You have to hold your hands up and say well done it was a better team and Arsenal were a better team.

“We have a good away record in the last few weeks so we won’t be too disappointed with what we have done.”