IT may be too soon to say how two rash tackles by players who should know better will impact on Wanderers European ambitions.

But there is no question that the penalties Gary Speed and Abdoulaye Faye conceded to gift Blackburn a derby victory they hardly deserved put paid to any chance of the Reebok staging Champions League football next season.

Instead of shooting for a top four finish, they are now anxiously looking over their shoulders at the chasing pack, fearing the UEFA Cup place that was a racing certainty at the turn of the year, is now in jeopardy.

The only crumb of comfort after Benni McCarthy lashed in the two penalties that gave Rovers revenge for their Ewood Park defeat back in October, was the four-point lead they still hold over the rest.

But, with the race hotting up as Everton, Spurs and even Blackburn raise their own sights, the statistic that matters most is two wins from eight games - and that is not the form that gets teams into Europe.

Sam Allardyce admitted as much as he considered the consequences of yesterday's Reebok defeat that was sealed when Abdoulaye Faye's last-gasp "equaliser" was disallowed for what turned out to be the most marginal of offside decisions.

"We can't be looking ahead any more," the Wanderers' boss said, dismissive of the mathematics that suggest they could still catch Arsenal or Liverpool and mindful of the degree of difficulty of some of their remaining nine games - the first of which is at Old Trafford in 12 days' time.

"It was always going to be a mammoth task, but we've slipped up again and missed another opportunity to take at least a point, when we wanted three, and with nine games to go we've still got to go to Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea.

"Take those three games out of the equation - because it will so difficult for us to get anything there - and it means we're going to have to win the other six, if we are to have a stab at the top end.

"And that's a huge task when every game we are playing now looks difficult for us to win."

It was an honest assessment on a day when Wanderers only had themselves to blame - not referee Rob Styles or his assistants - for missing the boat.

Allardyce might have a reputation for taking officials to task, but he had no complaints with the two penalty decisions that handed victory on a plate to Mark Hughes and his happy Rovers.

"Two very, very stupid penalties" was how he described Speed's needless tackle on David Bentley in the 58th minute and Faye's even more reckless challenge on McCarthy 10 minutes later.

And although he considered it a "crying shame" that Faye's superbly executed, looping header was ruled out, he accepted that the decision, although marginal in the extreme, was correct.

That meant Nicolas Anelka's 10th goal of the season three minutes from time counted for nothing. Well-taken, as so many of the Frenchman's goals are, it gave Rovers the jitters and gave Wanderers hope of salvaging something.

And, when the board went up to show four minutes of added time, those Bolton fans who stuck it out to the bitter end, believed their patience would be rewarded.

Hughes complained later that he couldn't understand where the four minutes had come from.

But it was all too little too late.

Wanderers, once again devoid of the physical presence of Kevin Davies, had missed the chance to impose themselves in the latest in a derby series that has been desperately short on quality.

Bizarrely, it was again a story of two penalties. But this time Jussi Jaaskelainen couldn't repeat the heroics that denied McCarthy and Jason Roberts to secure that Ewood Park victory five months ago, when the Whites were on the crest of a winning wave and riding their luck.

The big Finn managed to keep them in with a shout when he denied Roberts after the former Wigan striker raced away from Nicky Hunt and Henrik Pedersen, and he made a nuisance of himself when he went up for a couple of late corners. But two clean sheets in 10 games shows why Allardyce is lamenting the loss of the defensive solidity that was a key feature in the first half of the season.

Empty spaces around the stadium showed precisely why these two clubs are leading the way in cutting ticket prices. And there was precious little in the opening exchanges to suggest those who stayed away had misjudged the situation.

Wanderers had comfortably the better territorial advantage in the first half with Ivan Campo doing his best to impose himself. But Rovers, fresh from the defensive job that proved so successful in their FA Cup replay against Arsenal in midweek, restricted them to half chances.

Christopher Samba, highly-rated by Hughes, did enough to take the sting out of El-Hadji Diouf's shot and give Friedel a more routine save than he might have had. And the big Congolese defender made another important interception when he cut out Pedersen's cross after the Dane, preferred at left back to Ricardo Gardner, combined with Diouf to get round the back of Brett Emerton.

Kevin Nolan was unlucky not to get a better connection with a header when he beat Samba to Hunt's cross, and Campo's dipping shot from 20 yards might have gone in on another day.

Yet Rovers missed the best chance of the half when Derbyshire pounced on a weak header by Tal Ben Haim and teed up Bentley for a shot that the former Arsenal youngster sliced wildly off target.

Allardyce tried to spring a surprise by starting with a 4-4-2 line-up, but he reverted to his tried and trusted formula in the second half and things appeared to be going better.

Diouf was menacing and combinations with Anelka, who had been subdued in the first half, started to test Rovers' defence.

But, after surviving one counter-attack when Ben Haim's majestic tackle on Stephen Warnock saved Hunt's blushes, they were undone by a second when Speed launched himself into an unnecessary challenge on Bentley.

The most experienced player in Premiership history had fluffed his lines and he knew it.

As widely predicted, David Dunn was treated to a hostile reception from the Bolton fans who didn't take kindly to him publicly "snubbing" a move to the Reebok.

And who was it, between the two McCarthy penalties, who cleared Pedersen's shot off the line?

The smile on Dunn's face was a dead giveaway.