Steve Kean admits early goal and sending off cost Blackburn after Arsenal thrashing

Blackburn manager Steve Kean does not expect his side to dwell on a "tough" afternoon after they were comprehensively beaten 7-1 by Arsenal at the Emirates.

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Kean’s men got off to a nightmare start, conceding a goal just 80 seconds into the game before Gael Givet was sent-off in the first-half and the Blackburn boss admitted Rovers had been their their own worst enemies.

“It was a tough afternoon. When you come here and try to compete against Arsenal with 11 men its tough enough,” he said.

“The two things that had the biggest bearing on the game was the early goal and us going down to 10 men. The ref didn’t have a tough decision to make. We all know the rules now, if you leave the ground with two feet that type of challenge will not be accepted any longer. That made it very difficult for us.”

Gael Givet joined the list of numerous Premier League players that have been sent off this season for a two-footed tackle and while Kean says he has no complaints about the situation he was full of sympathy for his defender.

“He’s cut up. He’s a very genuine guy, everybody knows that. He’s a committed player. He’s really down at the moment," he added.

“We had to take David Dunn off to put Grant Hanley on and then it’s difficult as we didn’t have enough players in the middle of the pitch to put pressure on the ball. It was a long afternoon after that. Having said that it’s the first time this season where we’ve not been in the game and got turned over.

“We just need to analysis that and pull it to bits because we’ve got some massive games coming up and it’s not helped the goal difference in any way. We’ve picked up an injury with Jason Lowe, Gaels going to miss three matches so it’s been a poor afternoon.”

Robin van Persie was in spectacular form on an afternoon where he scored three and set up another and while Kean did not want to take too much credit away from the Arsenal striker did reveal he was disappointed with this side's defending.

“He [Van Persie] is fantastic but we were disappointed that the service that came into him was a little bit too easy. We mentioned that and have been working on that," he said.

“I think we could have dealt with that when we had everybody on the pitch. As soon as they could free up that extra man in midfield, no matter what we do, they get the ball, they find the spare player and then they can get the quality service into him.

“He certainly can score any type of goal. His run for the first goal was very clever and he can finish all sorts. We felt as though it was too easy getting the ball to him.”

Blackburn remain well inside the relegation zone after the defeat but the under-pressure manager was remaining upbeat about his team's forthcoming fixtures.

“We get back to work straight way and start to prepare for QPR. There’s been many times this season were we’ve had disappointing results but we’ve always had a reaction," he said.

“The game's finished but we will put on the sessions required to deal with it then the pressure will be on for us to get a result. If we have had a disappointing result, we’ve bounced back. It’s a horrible afternoon but we will have to respond. They know they’ve let themselves down but we will be bouncing back.”

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