SAM Allardyce fears his players could be the architects of their own relegation downfall if they cannot find a way of beating the clock.

For the fourth time in 15 games Wanderers paid the price for a last-gasp lapse, Ole Gunnar Solksjaer rescuing a point for Manchester United in the 90th minute of Saturday's derby.

A record crowd of 27,409 saw Bruno N'Gotty put Allardyce's survival squad on course for a Premiership double against their arch-rivals with a performance the manager acknowledged as "the best of the season".

But the manager was inconsolable and angrily accused his players of putting their Premiership status at risk. The repercussions of their dramatic squanderings - in the home games against Chelsea and Blackburn then at West Brom a fortnight ago - could be devastating.

"If we don't eradicate it soon," he warned, "it's going to cost us a place in the Premiership. That's how serious it is and it doesn't matter whether it happens against West Brom or Manchester United.

"We should now be sitting on 30 points, at least, which is two points ahead of the possible safety schedule of a point a game. But we are two points behind that."

It was of no consolation, he said, that Wanderers played so well and dominated United for long periods. He had hoped to take advantage of the fact that United would be jaded after playing three times in the previous fortnight while his players had enjoyed a two-week break including six days of warm-weather training in Dubai.

"As professionals you're paid to get points," he insisted. "You want your

team to entertain but you want the points in the bag first and entertainment second."

Furious that the United equaliser came after Ricardo Gardner made an unforced error and lost possession in his own half, he said: "I sit and wonder what we have to do to get the players to see a game out.

"We've practised it, we've talked about it, we've watched the video ... the longer it goes on the more pressure they put on themselves. The hammer has come down on our heads again and that's a shame because the last time, at West Brom, we might not have deserved to win. This time it's the reverse. We were the better side for long periods of the game.

"If I could say that Manchester United scored a wonderful goal in the last minute and we could do nothing about it, then so be it. That can happen because of the skill of United as a team and as 11 individuals. But that didn't happen. We shot ourselves in the foot by giving away possession in our own half. It was a cruel blow. It took me long enough to recover from the West Brom one, this one's going to take me a lot longer."

Allardyce's anger was compounded by the eighth minute penalty appeal referee Andy D'Urso waved away after Ivan Campo had been blatantly fouled by John O'Shea as he tried to reach a Youri Djorkaeff corner.

Knowing he was risking a disrepute charge from the FA, he fumed: "If anything sickens me more than losing in the last minute it's referees 'doing' smaller sides against bigger ones.

"It's the old story. I keep spouting about it to Mr (Keith) Hackett and Mr (Philip) Don, the two heads of the referees' department. But I keep being proved right. I wish I didn't.

"But there was no doubt whatsoever that Ivan Campo was wrestled to the ground. There's not a cat in hell's chance they can make any excuse whatsoever for it not being penalty. It was so early on that you can't say whether it would have won us the game. It may have lost us the game coming so early against United because it might have kicked them into action sooner, I can't really say. But what I can say is that it was blatant and nailed on."