THERE would have been an awful lot of Blackburn Rovers fans walking around with their heads a little higher on Saturday evening.

They had just seen their side put another nail in Arsenal's Premier League title challenge with a battling 0-0 draw at the Emirates Stadium.

Huge performances from the likes of Chris Samba, Ryan Nelsen, Jermaine and Phil Jones can't fail to have instilled fresh hope for the forthcoming relegation battle - and rightly so.

This has to be used as the standard for the rest of the season now.

There is no point in the team patting themselves on their backs and then suffering defeat at home to Birmingham on Saturday.

Do that and the last 90 minutes would have been completely wasted. The players have shown what they can do and now we need that level of performance consistently.

Rovers showed on Saturday they should not have got themselves in the jeopardy they are currently in.

There are no excuses now. Relegation would be inexcusable from a squad with such quality.