WHEN I wrote earlier in the season praising the vast improvement in the Rovers' performances immediately following the appointment of Tony Parkes, I was not to know it would be limited to a relatively-short honeymoon period.

With his own even briefer honeymoon period seemingly well and truly over, I hope Graeme Souness is now revising his initial view that major changes are not required to his playing staff.

The Manchester City game summed up exactly what is wrong with the current outfit. For nearly an hour Rovers dominated a technically inferior Manchester City side. Then the news came through that Ipswich had scored and City visibly upped the physical tempo of their game in the search for a vital equaliser.

The manner in which Rovers capitulated must have been an acute embarrassment to Souness who was so combative as a player.

Theoretically, there is not much needed by way of transfer activity -- namely, the acquisition of a dominant centre half and prolific centre forward -- to make Rovers an unbeatable proposition at this modest level. In reality however, the main problem with the team over the last two or three seasons has been the lack of a heartbeat, lack of real passion and the absence of an indomitable will to win.

Following the club's relegation from the Premiership, Brian Kidd quite correctly labelled his players rubber dinghy men and remarked that the inmates had been running the asylum for far too long.

Amazingly, he then proceeded to do absolutely nothing about it, stating a month or two later he was quite satisfied with exactly the same bunch of players.

I fervently hope Mr Souness is indeed the man to reverse the recent freefall in the club's fortunes, but feel that he must avoid falling into the same trap.

The majority of the players have failed miserably to perform to their true potential at either Premiership or even First Division level over a period of some two and a half seasons under three different managers prior to Souness.

It, therefore, seems to me to be somewhat unrealistic to expect them to start performing consistently now. I suspect major surgery in the form of some serious wheeling and dealing will be necessary before there are 11 players out on the pitch in blue and white halves whom the fans can feel proud of and who will deliver results accordingly.

SIMON J LEIGH, Wycollar Road, Blackburn