Sam Allardyce has blamed the squandering of gilt edged chances by Matt Jarvis, Carlton Cole and Joey O’Brien as the main reason for the 3-1 defeat by Arsenal.
He explained: Jarvis got his on target but the other two were wide and had we given ourselves a bigger cushion I don’t think we would have lost. I’m not saying we’d have won but I don’t think we’d have lost.
“We kicked ourselves off brilliantly in the second half and made some great chances – had we taken one of them we’d have been okay.”
He said though that the team should take the positives from showing how they had performed against the top club and carry that into the games against West Bromwich Albion on Saturday and Fulham.
He said: “If we can play that way against the teams around us they are the going to be the games to get us out of the position we are now in..”
With many calling for his head, Allardyce was not giving the appearance of a man walking the plank declaring that he would be looking at the goal which beat keeper Adrian and for which he looked at fault.
He said: “I need to see if that took a deflection – I’ll be looking at it tomorrow but he did make some good stops.”
Allardyce confirmed that the two upcoming games would probably arrive too soon for James Collins who has a calf injury and he added the squad could be down to as few as 15.
He said: “We may have to step one or two of the youngsters up.”
