Sam - It's our fault we drew

Allardyce: Frustrated

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Newcastle United boss Sam Allardyce believes a combination of poor finishing and sloppy defending cost his side three points against Derby County.

Paul Jewell's Derby took an early lead through Giles Barnes, however a barrage of Magpies pressure eventually resulted in an equaliser through Mark Viduka.

Newcastle were then guilty of squandering some decent chances, and Kenny Miller struck in the second half to make it 2-1.

Despite being saved when Viduka netted with three minutes remaining, Allardyce has vented his frustration at the disappointing combination of shaky defending and a lack of cutting edge up front.

Squandered

"We're very disappointed by the number of chances we have created and only scored two," he said on Sky Sports News.

"We were squandering chances left, right and centre and instead of converting them and taking the pressure off ourselves, we allowed the opposition to score a [first-half] goal that could have been avoided.

"The conversion of chances rate today - again like against Birmingham - is way down compared to what we are creating.

Dominated

"The basic defending has let us down. Derby have had two shots on target and scored two.

"We should be winning the game comfortably. We completely dominated the opposition.

"We might get criticised for not beating Derby - we should be beating them - but we did everything within our power to beat them.

"It is our fault we didn't win."