MARK Hughes has told fans to fasten their seat belts because Blackburn Rovers are facing a battle for Premiership survival.

A crushing 6-2 defeat at the hands of Arsenal on Saturday plunged Rovers back into a relegation dog-fight, and Hughes believes the second half of the season is now set to become a rollercoaster ride.

Speaking ahead of this afternoon's clash with Liverpool at Ewood, the Rovers boss said: "We've got to get points on the board, we understand that.

"We've got Liverpool (today), then Middlesbrough and Wigan in quick succession, which are huge games for us, so it's going to be a little bit like this for us - a rollercoaster ride.

"We will win well, and then possibly not get points away from home for whatever reason, because we find it difficult right now."

Saturday's defeat in the capital was Rovers' heaviest under Hughes and it was also the first time Rovers had conceded six in a competitive game since they were beaten 6-0 by Manchester City in 1983.

It left the team in the Premiership's bottom four going into today's game with Liverpool, just one point above West Ham, who occupy the third relegation spot.

However, Hughes insists his players cannot afford to dwell on events at the Emirates, where three goals in the last five minutes gave the scoreline a rather flattering look.

"We haven't got time to dwell on this one. We've just got to move on from it, which is probably the best thing to do," said the Rovers chief.

"We'll take the positives out of it, but it was a poor result. No-one likes getting beat 6-2 and it's very difficult to take.

"Until five minutes from the end, we were still very much in the game and the goals at the end give people who weren't there a different view of the game that's gone ahead.

"But it's there on the record, we're obviously not happy with it, we've got to try and take the positives out of it, and we will do because we've got another big game against Liverpool.

"Whenever I've asked the players for a response in the past, I've usually got it so I hope that's the case again."

Reflecting on the overall position at the halfway stage, the Rovers boss added: "We are in a situation where we didn't anticipate finding ourselves at the beginning of this season, but there are reasons for that.

"We've lost key players on occasions, we've got three long term injuries, and it's been well documented that I've been upset with certain decisions on certain occasions that have gone against us.

"But in the vast majority of games I've been pleased with the level of performance we have been able to produce, and an example of that was the game on Saturday. I thought we had a real go."