SAM Allardyce knows Wanderers missed a golden opportunity to claim "the victory of victories" in the battle for Premiership survival.

A goal to the good against a ten-man Blackburn side stripped, because of his own folly, of their most dangerous striker, he could not have dreamed of a being in a better half-time position.

But after Matt Jansen had cancelled out Rod Wallace's goal, he had to admit: "Graeme (Souness) will be happier than me."

Allardyce admitted Wanderers let two valuable points slip when they failed to convert the scoring chances they created early in the second half.

"At that period of the game we're on top and we've got to make sure we capitalise on the chances and kill them off," he stressed. "We let it slip at the back by trying to go forward an get the second goal. Not scoring, we left Blackburn with a sniff on the break and the more it went on and the more we tried to get the second, the more spaces we left at the back - and that got them into the game.

"We got a bit nervous, like anybody would, when we were 1-0 up but, in saying that, it was a wonderful goal they scored.

"To be fair, they came back extremely well with ten men but they were obviously going to throw caution to the wind as the game went on and we didn't defend as a unit as well as we should.

"I'm bitterly disappointed because we did what we had to do before half-time and that was get the advantage when they were down to ten men. We just failed to capitalise on it by putting away the chances we had.

"Then it got a bit hairy and Jussi (Jaaskelainen) had to make a couple of good saves."

Allardyce played down the events off the field - at half-time and at full-time, sparked by Andy Cole's dismissal for retaliating against Mike Whitlow, insisting: "There were no 'afters' from our point of view.

"Just a little bit of verbals here and there but it's a derby match when all's said and done and there's bound to be tension in both camps because of the position we are in."

The manager described the Reebok pitch as "very, very bobbly" and felt it was a contributory factor in the mistake by Rovers' defender Henning Berg, whose under-hit backpass let Wallace in for the Wanderers' goal.

"The surface didn't help either side in football terms," he explained, "and we knew balls in behind the opposition would cause problems. I think the bad surface made Henning Berg make a hash of the backpass and Rod followed it on and tucked it away superbly well."

Allardyce drew encouragement from the performance of Youri Djorkaeff, who made his Reebok bow in his favoured position in support of Wallace and strike partner Fredi Bobic.

"Youri got into the game more," he acknowledged, drawing comparisons with his debut the week before at Southampton.

"He showed some nice touches which is what we want. We also changed the shape of the side and that looked extremely solid as well as being a good attacking force."