Rovers condemned to third straight defeat by Icelander’s cool finish

Blackburn 0 Charlton 1

Hreidarsson produced a stunning diving header from Paolo di Canio's corner to fire the only goal of the game against Blackburn at Ewood Park. But the Iceland international had been in doubt until two hours before the kick-off and Curbishley had even less confidence about his ability to finish off the move which won the game.

Curbishley revealed: "Hermann woke up this morning and felt really bad and couldn't train with us. But he got up for lunch and felt better and declared himself fit at 5pm."

"We had been practicing the set-piece all week in training and di Canio couldn't get the ball off the ground. He took seven or eight corners and then we had to give up because they weren't going where we wanted them to go."

Curbishley insisted there was no danger of feet leaving the ground at The Valley, with Arsenal next on the agenda. "I didn't think we'd be in the top seven after eight or nine games and it has just been a case of getting back to basics.

"We had a team chasing us for the first time in a while and I thought when we didn't finish them off it might cost us the game."

One blow for Charlton was an early ankle injury to Luke Young which is expected to rule him out for up to three weeks.

Blackburn boss Graeme Souness admitted his frustration after watching his side crash to their third Premiership defeat in a row.

Souness said his side were "mugged" after once again controlling a large part of the game, only to lose to a single defensive lapse. And despite their woeful recent record Souness remains confident that his current squad of players will finish the season high up the Premiership table.

"It was the same old story for us we had most of the possession but we shot ourselves in the foot with another defensive mistake," he said. "Lady Luck is not with us at the moment."

But Souness refused to pin any particular blame on Garry Flitcroft, whose error led to Hreidarsson's goal.

Flitcroft was substituted at half-time but Souness said: "It was Garry tonight and it has been somebody else at other times. The ball didn't fall kindly for us tonight and that really was the difference."

BLACKBURN: Friedel, Reid, Todd, Martin Taylor, Gresko (Baggio 78), Emerton (Gallagher 81), Flitcroft (Jansen 45), Tugay, Ferguson, Thompson, Cole.

CHARLTON: Kiely, Young (Kishishev 18), Perry, Fish, Hreidarsson, Stuart, Parker, Holland, Jensen, Di Canio (Fortune 87), Johansson (Euell 69).

Referee: G Barber.