Allardyce on... Burnley

  • by Staff Writer
  • Sunday, 4th December 2011

It was a a brief post-match presser from Big Sam this week as he tried to come to terms with just exactly how his team were beaten by Burnley...

Sam: What happened? You talked about complacency in your programme notes...

I don't think it was complacency personally, I think that we should have defended one throw-in and one corner better than we did and unfortunately we didn't. It's not really complcency when you see a performance like that. Complacency is about the players not dominating the opposition and that wasn't the case today. It was just a case of one of those days today for us where we've worked so hard to get in front and then unfortunately we've just...

We created more chances to score more goals of course, yes we did. We hit the woodwork a few times and squirmed a few chances wide of the post when we perhaps should have done a bit better. The sickening thing for us is [it] looked like we'd got what we wanted - an early goal - in the second and like I said, just one throw-in and one corner has been very costly today.

You just have to accept that it's one of those days. It didn't seem to be our day, [the ball] didn't seem to drop in the right areas. We found the finish but hit the woodwork and apart from the outstanding goal that Kevin Nolan scored - which was the hardest chance we had today to score a goal - it's disappointing, but 10 games and 22 points isn't too bad.

Is it the most frustrating thing for a manager when you get done off two set pieces like that?

It is for me, yeah! It is for me because it's a massive part of the game today and I think a big percentage of goals today are scored from set plays and the opposition have scored two. But that happens sometimes no matter how you defend.

We've got good strong defenders, I think we've probably got the best defensive record in the league at the moment. Sometimes balls in the box drop on an opposition head whether you've got good defnders or not. Today I think that happened and it was two very, very good headers to finish them off. The big disappointment of course is losing here at home again and losing the way we did, because we didn't deserve it.

With Carlton Cole up front, you ended up with Piquionne and Carew chasing the game. Do you think on second thoughts you might have played a second striker right from the start?

No... Don't talk rubbish. [laughs]

I think that's rubbish. You look at the chances created and the shots on target we've had compared to the opposition...

But you didn't score, did you?

No but we hit the post three or four times. 433 has produced all the results that we've created. 442 has hardly ever produced them. So, it's your job to ask the question but it's my job to say, "I think that's... not right".

I know what's right for the team but you are obviously entitled to ask the question - but I can shoot you down by the fact that our performances at 433 are 50 times better than they are at 442.

[long silence] You've scared them all away!

I didn't mean to!

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