Wanderers 2 ROVERS 2: YOURI Djorkaeff is urging Wanderers to use their attacking skills to insure against the last-gasp horrors that have returned to haunt them writes Gordon Sharrock

The Reebok is reeling again from yet another stoppage time catastrophe that suggests they have have learned nothing from last season's morale-sapping sequence of blunders that cost vital Premiership points and left them fighting a nailbiting survival battle.

The fear now is that the weakness could become a serious psychological problem and could cost them dear again.

But the legendary Frenchman believes the answer lies in the old English adage of attack being the best form of defence.

"There is no one magic formula," said the World Cup and European Championship winner, "but maybe we must think about attacking and scoring another goal.

"We need to do something because it is happening again, like last year, so we have to find a solution, a tactic to balance it."

Wanderers had victory in sight when they led 2-1 going into the fourth minute of overtime against a Blackburn side down to 10 men following the 88th minute dismissal of Steven Reid, just 12 minutes into his Premiership debut.

But for the third season in a row, Rovers stormed back to snatch a point as Dwight Yorke headed Corrado Grabbi's cross past a despairing and exposed Jussi Jaaskelainen.

Last December it was Craig Short who grabbed a share of the derby spoils - one of four occasions at the Reebok alone where Wanderers were left to count the cost of their inability to hold on for either a victory or a draw - and in September 2001 Lucas Neill's late header denied Sam Allardyce the joy of an Ewood Park triumph.

It has become their Achilles heel and one opponents are now looking to exploit, judging by the reference Graeme Souness made to the statistics in his post-match comments.

But Djorkaeff, whose third minute penalty gave Wanderers a flying start and whose personal performance was a major factor in them holding a commanding 2-0 half-time lead, believes positive thinking could be the answer.

"It's difficult," said the distraught veteran, who had taken over the captaincy following the substitution of less influential Jay-Jay Okocha. "We have spoken with the manager before the season started. The big mystery of last year was this last minute thing and maybe we have to work harder on the training ground. I don't know. But we are thinking about this black point.

"We may say we will never do it again but you never know ... but I think we turned back into defence too soon and the game was not finished. I think attacking and maybe scoring a third goal would have been the best choice for the team.

"We should have played like the first half and continued wanting to score and maybe we would not have conceded. Even if we lose the ball in attack it is very far from Jussi's goal."

Allardyce was furious with his team for failing to deal with Rovers' desperation tactics at the end when Wanderers had eight players behind the ball but only two in the six-yard area as Yorke rose to meet Grabbi's cross.

But the manager traced the problem back to the opening minutes of the second half when poor defending allowed Matt Jansen to fire the Ewood men back into a game that looked beyond them at half time.

"When you are seeing a game out, you see it out from the beginning of the second half and not the last five minutes," he said, seething after seeing two priceless points squandered.

"If we'd remained 2-0 up there would have been no need to score another goal. But we made it easy for the opposition to get their tails up and lift their spirits and turn it into a very difficult game from our point of view."

It looked anything but difficult for Wanderers in the first half as they swept Rovers aside, contemptuous of the fact that they had kicked off their season with an impressive 5-1 drubbing of Premiership newcomers Wolves.

Even before Djorkaeff calmly placed the ball wide of Brad Friedel's fully-extended right arm to convert the penalty awarded after Neill had been tricked into a foul on Okocha, the Frenchman had seen his audacious chip sail just inches over the bar.

Souness claimed, with some justification, that Aussie full-back Neill was harshly penalised and he felt his defenders should have done better when Djorkaeff slipped a sliderule pass inside Vratislav Gresko to pave the way for Kevin Davies to score a delightful second on 25 minutes - a dream strike for the hard-working frontman against his former club.

But even the Rovers boss could not deny Wanderers' comprehensive dominance of the first 45. Djorkaeff - returning on the right in place of Stelios after only being fit enough for a place on the bench at Old Trafford - was an inspiration, Ivan Campo conducted things from that midfield anchor role he plays so well and in Davies and Henrik Pedersen Allardyce had powerful and tireless workhorses who had Souness' defenders constantly on the run.

Rovers are trying to get Rangers' midfielder Barry Ferguson to Ewood but before he agrees, the Ibrox skipper might check out with his former team-mate Lorenzo Amoruso on the demands of Premiership football. The Italian defender was a big fish in a tiny pool in the SPL but there were times when he was floundering in dangerous waters as Wanderers threatened to turn the latest in their high octane series of Red Rose derbies into a rout.

But Friedel's saves - first half from Pedersen and in the second from the enthusiastic Nicky Hunt - proved crucial as Rovers recovered to secure a fifth successive stalemate.

Yorke, mourning the recent death of his sister, showed remarkable courage to go the distance and stood out as the main threat to Bruno N'Gotty and Florent Laville. One header flashed inches over, Jaaskelainen denied him with his legs and when the big Finn stranded himself blocking Garry Flitcroft it took a goal-line clearance from Hunt to deny the former United man and keep Wanderers in the ascendancy.

Anthony Barness was thrown on as an extra defender, replacing Pedersen after the Dane struggled once more to convert his tireless effort into the goals his commitment deserves, and Souness had reached the point of throwing his water bottle down in disgust as he stared defeat in the face.

It was advantage Wanderers when Reid received a straight red card for what his manager described as a "great challenge" on Stelios two minutes from the end of normal time but six minutes later it was Allardyce's turn to curse, furious at the lapse but also worried that his attack was unable to put the game beyond Rovers' reach.

"Criticising the defence is a big part of the story," he said, "and not just the back four but the seven or eight players who were behind the ball in the last minute. That's a big part of why we haven't won but there's a little bit of the responsibility lies with the fact that for all the chances we've had, we scored one goal - not really two because the other was a penalty.

"We should have done better and seen the game off, especially when Blackburn over-extended themselves, as they were always going to do.

"Good teams will finish the opposition off and give them no chance to come back."