Allardyce bemoans decisions

Blackburn manager Sam Allardyce believes his side were hampered by poor refereeing decisions as they lost 3-0 against Stoke at the Britannia Stadium.

Rovers were swept aside by a hard-working Stoke side, but Allardyce was unhappy that referee Steve Bennett dismissed Chris Samba and felt his side should have had a penalty in the first half.

With Rovers 1-0 down, Allardyce felt a header from Samba was deflected wide by Dean Whitehead's hand, which could have changed the game.

"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," he 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."

Dismissal

Allardyce was also unhappy with Samba's dismissal, and reckons the imposing defender was unfortunate.

The Rovers centre-half was cautioned in the first period for a tussle in the box with Ryan Shawcross and the former Bolton manager believes that referees need to be consistent in upholding the rules.

"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."

Allardyce was also critical of his side's defending from set pieces as it is something they had worked on in recent weeks.

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."