STAR striker Jordan Rhodes has urged Blackburn Rovers to start on the front foot in today’s Ewood Park showdown with fellow top-six hopefuls Charlton Athletic (3pm).

Rovers have conceded the first goal in 12 of their 21 Championship games so far this season including in all of their last five.

Rhodes, who is set to be recalled to Gary Bowyer’s starting-line up this afternoon, admits they are making life hard for themselves.

But he will readily accept having to make yet another fight back if it means Rovers returning to winning ways in their final outing before Christmas.

Rhodes said: “It’s no coincidence that when you go 1-0 behind in a game you’re always chasing it.

“We’ve done that quite a bit this season, I don’t know what the statistics are, but we’ve got to be starting games in a positive manner.

“Let’s get a goal up and let the opposition do the chasing.

“But it’s a 90-minute game and as long as we’ve got more goals than the opposition over the course of the game, that’s all we’ve got to worry about it.”

Rovers, who three weeks ago were basking in the glow of a nine-match unbeaten run, have taken 14 points from losing position this season.

But even their powers of resilience could not stop them from going down to a 3-1 defeat at Brentford last Saturday after a goal with virtually the last kick of the game condemned them to a 2-1 loss to Sheffield Wednesday in their last outing at Ewood.

Rhodes, who made an impact off the bench against the Bees, his former loan club, said: “We’ve gone from a half-decent run when we went nine unbeaten to losing six points from six which doesn’t look good at all.

“Going into the game against Charlton we’ll be very much looking to get back to winning ways and giving the crowd something to cheer about and a bit of optimism around Christmas time.

“Sheffield Wednesday I didn’t think there was much in the game. We probably didn’t deserve to lose it in the manner that we did, with a deflected shot at the end, which was a little bit unfortunate, but that’s your luck at times.

“Then we went down to Brentford and didn’t put our stamp on the game, which isn’t like us, but this Saturday we’ll do our utmost to give everyone something to cheer about and come the 90 minutes hopefully we’ll get more goals than Charlton.”

Rovers boss Bowyer is confident his side can banish the memory of the disappointing defeat to the Bees by beating the Addicks.

He said: “After the Brentford game there was some honest words said because that’s what they are, they are an honest bunch who care.

“We’ve got to put that to bed now, we’ve gone through the video with them, we’ve expressed our concerns over what we saw and how it was and now it’s a case of moving on because you still saw a team trying to get back into the game and create chances.

“If we weren’t creating chances and we weren’t showing the ability to try and get back in the game that would be a concern.

“We’ve got to stay level-headed. You look at the Championship this season and teams have gone 10 games without a win, we’re talking about two defeats on the trot after a mightily impressive nine-game unbeaten record.”

But Bowyer, like Rhodes, knows Rovers have to cut out the slow starts.

He said: “It’s something we’ve spoken about quite a few times with the players and it was brought up again this week.

“It does seem to be something we’ve not been able to do in the last five games so our main focus has got to be getting on that front foot and starting the game properly and putting the opposition under pressure because we’re the home team.”