Big Sam rues slow start

Sam Allardyce admitted that Blackburn struggled to cope without a number of senior players following the 4-0 defeat to Arsenal. Allardyce was not able to field his strongest possible side at Emirates Stadium and was then forced to take off Gael Givet and Stephen Warnock after the pair picked up injuries.The Rovers manager concedes it would have been difficult to stop the Gunners anyway as they turned in a masterful display."It went wrong before the start as I didn't have a fully fit squad available, and then of course we lost Gael after a few minutes and Stephen just into the second half," Allardyce told Sky Sports."That was too much for us to cope with against an Arsenal side that was very good."DisappointingBlackburn fell behind in only the second minute and Allardyce was frustrated that his players had repeated a mistake, after the same thing happened against Fulham in midweek.He said: "It is something that is really disappointing because we have talked about it before. "We started here and we said the longer we can keep it tight, the more frustrated Arsenal can get."Recently they have struggled to score but today we didn't have enough experienced players on the pitch in the end and we couldn't withstand the pressure they put us under."There was only one really good performance and that was Paul Robinson, who had an excellent game and the rest of the lads unfortunately weren't up to their very best."Allardyce refused to defend El-Hadji Diouf for a poor tackle on Arsenal goalkeeper Manuel Almunia which led to the Senegalese forward being booked, although he did agree that a red card would have been unfair.Asked if Diouf should have been sent off, Allardyce replied: "I don't think so. It was a silly challenge and there was no need for him to do it. He got a deserved yellow card."

Source: SKY_Sports