Fulham in smash–and–grab win

Blackburn Rovers 0 Fulham 2

It was Rovers' third consecutive home defeat and provided further evidence that Lorenzo Amoruso is struggling at the heart of the defence since his £1.4m move from Rangers.

Souness refused to blame individuals but the Blackburn manager said: "They were both poor goals to give away defensively. We have to defend better and that starts at the front, and we must start to win our home games if we want to do well. It hurts to lose and the way in which we lost hurts."

Luis Boa Morte opened the scoring in the fifth minute from close range after Steed Malbranque had outwitted Vratislav Gresko, then Brad Friedel and Martin Taylor both left the cross to each other.

Amoruso was then culpable in the 56th minute as Louis Saha exposed his lack of pace before finishing with aplomb.

There was more woe for Blackburn with Markus Babbel suffering a serious thigh injury meaning he could be out for six weeks.

Fulham manager Chris Coleman admitted it had not been a match for the connoisseur to watch. "We came to frustrate them and we did that. We have to take a lot of positives when we limit a side like that to so few chances. We can't just go out and play nice, pretty football we have been doing the nasty side of it too."

Malbranque was the outstanding player on show, and Coleman added: "Steed's a different class, he's a great player."

BLACKBURN: Friedel, Martin Taylor, Amoruso, Babbel (Johansson 28), Gresko (Grabbi 58), Emerton, Ferguson (Tugay 58), Flitcroft, Thompson, Cole, Jansen.

FULHAM: Van der Sar, Volz (Leacock 45), Goma, Knight, Bonnissel, Pembridge, Inamoto, Boa Morte (Buari 84), Clark, Malbranque, Saha.

Referee: M Messias (N Yorkshire).