BLENDING the old and the new presents a challenge for Neil Lennon, the size of which may well have been illustrated at the iPro Stadium.

Derby – fluid in attack, compact in defence – looked like a side ready to claim an automatic promotion spot and a place in the Premier League.

By comparison Wanderers had three debutants on the field in the second half and looked anything like a team able to conjure the consistency for a play-off push.

While it isn’t quite back to square one for the Wanderers boss, it isn’t far off.

Having made six new signings in the January window, most of whom will need to settle into a new culture, Lennon spoke of the need to “drip feed” the likes of Barry Bannan, Simeon Slavchev, Filip Twardzik and Rochinha into his side.

But with injuries now racking up in every department he may need them to fire sooner than expected, or be dragged into a battle at the bottom of the table he does not wish to contemplate.

Lennon is not a man accustomed to failure. For all his media experience, it was hard to miss the anger in his eyes as he explained a desperate defensive display against the Rams.

Almost struggling to find a word that could adequately explain his annoyance, the manager left the local press in little doubt he intended to address the issues which had cropped up over 90 minutes at Derby as quickly as possible.

“I’m not happy with that performance; not the style of the performance or the level of the performance, or the lack of belief,” he told The Bolton News.

“I don’t want to go back down the road we were before but there are definitely still remnants, and they need to be remedied, and I will.

“Even at 2-0 I was thinking we were in the game and we could get one back but the third one killed us.

“But the senior players, the likes of Dervite, Lonergan, Moxey, you’ve got to take more responsibility.

“It’s pathetic actually.”

Wanderers had fended off Premier League Liverpool for virtually two sets of 90 minutes in the FA Cup but collapsed once their defences were breached against Derby eight minutes before half time.

And though Lennon praised the Rams for their attacking brand of football, it did not disguise the disappointment in his own team’s display.

“Derby are a very good team with a strong squad but they’re not Liverpool,” he said.

“We’ve only ourselves to blame. I don’t want to give Derby no credit, they’re an excellent team at home, but we have to compete a lot better than that. I’m not happy at all.”

Asked whether he felt he was “starting again” with the influx of new signings, Lennon agreed he had plenty of work on his hands.

“It’s looking that way,” he said. “Twardzik showed what he can do in little pieces, Le Fondre did okay but we need some support up there to him, we need Craig Davies or Emile Heskey to make his life easier.

“We had to make changes, we had injuries, but I’m not happy with the way we defended at times.

“At 1-0 it’s a wonder goal, you can accept it. But the second goal should have been dealt with and the third is a farce as far as I’m concerned. We had the ball and should have cleared our lines.

“The second and third goals were light, half-hearted, and that hasn’t been like us.

“We have to do a lot better. We looked a little bit lightweight in the second half losing Wheater and Trotter to injury but the third goal killed us.

“We shot ourselves in the foot and against a side going for promotion you can’t do that.”