NEIL Lennon looked back on Wanderers’ shock Capital One Cup exit against Burton Albion and insisted: “I’m already over it!”

After being caught by a sucker punch at the Macron Stadium on Tuesday night, the Whites boss has been in no mood to mope around.

For while his side’s absence in today’s second round shake-up might sting a little, the Northern Irishman is quite content that the surprise 1-0 defeat does not hint at bigger problems in the camp.

“I’ll be sitting and watching the draw thinking ‘it should be us’ so in that sense it’s disappointing but in my eyes we deserved to win the game so I have to be philosophical about it,” he said. “I can’t rant and rave.

“I’m over it already – my focus is on Middlesbrough.

“If we’d deserved to be beaten then I could handle it; I’d be far angrier or more disappointed.

“But the fact we played well gives me some encouragement.

“We didn’t take our chances, and our finishing has to be better.

“But I said to the players at half time that the only team that will beat us was us, and I think that’s how it proved to be.”

Lennon admits his team will need to sharpen up in front of goal when they visit Middlesbrough this weekend, having failed to score against Derby and Burton in their first two games.

Goals were not hard to come by in pre-season, and the Wanderers boss remains optimistic that things will soon improve.

“The most important thing in football is putting the ball in the back of the net,” he said.

“I can’t do that for them, as much as I’d like to at times, and the crowd would do as well, so we’ve got to improve on our finishing pretty quickly.

“Some players have got to get up to speed – and hopefully the result against Burton will be a little nudge for one or two of them.”

Lennon has some fitness concerns to address in his squad before Saturday’s game at the Riverside, and is keeping his fingers crossed that new loan signing Prince-Desir Gouano can pick up where he left off against Derby County.

The Frenchman pulled out of the squad in midweek with a groin injury but his partner Dorian Dervite may also be a doubt after receiving a facial injury against Burton.

“I looked at Dorian and thought ‘please don’t come off’ because I’ve got three centre-halves injured already and I couldn’t be doing with another one.

“He’s been excellent for us, he’s playing really well, so hopefully Prince will be okay too and we’ll be back to something like full strength for the weekend.”

It’s a case of good news, bad news in midfield for Lennon, with Darren Pratley likely to miss an extended spell of football with ankle ligament damage.

Liam Trotter has also been sidelined with a hamstring injury – but in better news, Mark Davies and Josh Vela emerged unscathed from their first start of the season and Jay Spearing will also be back in contention for this weekend after returning from suspension.

There could also be a place on the bench for youth product Rob Holding, who impressed on his debut against Burton despite the result.

Lennon admits the Stalybridge defender might have to wait his turn before becoming a regular feature of the first team, but was pleased with his first start.

“He played well, looked assured, I didn’t think there were any faults in his game,” Lennon said. “But there’s competition – you’ve got Tim Ream, Derik Osede, Prince, Dorian Dervite, David Wheater all in contention for that place.

“But he can play at full-back, he’s played there before, and he can be very pleased with how he played against Burton. There were a few players who didn’t deserve to be on the losing side and Rob was definitely one of them.”