Allardyce blasts Blackburn's 'diabolical' defending

Tottenham 4 Blackburn Rovers 2

LONDON // Sam Allardyce, the Blackburn Rovers manager, described his team's defensive display as "diabolical" as they were torn apart by Tottenham Hotspur.

Harry Redknapp's Spurs were 4-0 up before a couple of lapses in concentration, with Gareth Bale particularly impressive on the left.

"The game from my point of view as a defensive unit was diabolical and as an attacking unit very exciting," said Allardyce.

"But it is no good gifting the opposition four goals before you start putting the ball in the back of the net. We are very disappointed about the way we defended today.

"We gave ourselves too big a mountain to climb by not doing the basic defending right, which is unlike us, unusual, but unfortunate, and we will just have to take it on the chin.

"We had our times in the game. We had a penalty given against us which wasn't a penalty. Paul Robinson had both hands on the ball but they missed it.

"But their third goal summed our defending up today. It was a good save from Paul Robinson and the ball falls to [Gael] Givet. All he has to do is clear but he gives it to [Peter] Crouch to score. That summed us up today in that one moment. It was nice to see us open them up in the way we did. But Bale punished us severely today."

sports@thenational.ae