Blackburn boss hits out at referee

When Blackburn were 1-0 down, Allardyce felt they should have been awarded a penalty when a header from Samba was deflected wide by Stoke ace Dean Whitehead’s hand.

“Instead of getting back in the game and getting a penalty – two weeks on the trot there has been a handball on the line and the referee hasn’t seen it – we are 2-0 down,” Allardyce told Sky Sports.

“This one was going wide and there was a deflection on Chris Samba’s header. If the penalty is given, perhaps one of their players is sent off, we get to 1-1. It’s a big, big decision that has gone against us.”

Allardyce was also left to rue the referee’s decision to send off Samba.

“I can’t understand why Samba was sent off. I don’t know why he was booked in the first place,” he added.

“I watched a game on Monday where Shawcross was pulling a (Sunderland) centre forward back and the referee gave nothing.

“Chris Samba has been sent off for not a lot and that makes the game very difficult to come back at 2-0 down with 10 men.”

He added: “We created a lot of our own problems, the first two goals were something that we had worked on and we simply did not take care of that.

“Danny Higginbotham crept round the back for the first one and we were caught napping.

“We knew they were very good on set plays but we didn’t sort it out. It was amateur defending from us.”