HARRY REDKNAPP has told his Saints players to keep believing after their nightmare 3-0 defeat against Blackburn.

Saints had a shocking afternoon at Ewood Park and could have lost by more as their back-to-back wins against Tottenham and Middlesbrough have been followed by back-to-back defeats.

The performance against Rovers was out of character for Saints under Redknapp, left, and he says all he can do is pick up the team and focus on Saturday's match against Aston Villa at St Mary's.

He said: "We had a bad day but they've been playing great for me for weeks and weeks. Our last away game was Middlesbrough away and we had a great result.

"I've got to pick them up this week. It's a game of confidence and it's no good battering people.

"We've got six games left and I've got to keep them believing and we start again today.

"Teams have days like that. Even the best teams have days like that.

"It's how we react to that now.

"The last dodgy performance was Birmingham away and that was a couple of months ago.

"We picked ourselves up after that one and we have to do the same again."

Saints fell 1-0 behind early on but never looked like coming back - despite Redknapp throwing caution to the wind and playing three up front in the second half.

"We didn't play well," he said. "We have been but we came in 1-0 down at half-time and I felt we were still right in the game.

"We brought Kevin Phillips on but then we gave an own goal away and it was difficult.

"We've been playing ever so well, it's the worst we've been for a long long time and it's a setback for us.

"It's difficult to say why. It's hard to know.

"They played a different system we couldn't get to grips with.

"Dickov gave us all kinds of problems up front, we gave them too much space to run at us and we got stretched.

"They are a very decent team, though. Very compact, a very strong outfit.

"Putting three up front opened us up a bit.

"I took a gamble. We were 1-0 down and they don't concede many goals so I thought 'it's no good coming off getting beat 1-0 so let's have a go and see if we can get back at them.'

"Once we conceded the second one it was difficult."

Looking at the relegation battle, Redknapp added: "There's four teams in it now.

"Portsmouth are out of it now - they've got 34 points and I'd settle for 37 points now for sure."