SAM Allardyce is too focused, too single minded and altogether too confident in his own ability to worry about what other people think.

Apart from anything else, he does not have the time.

But he knows the effect pressure can have on those who do not share his strength of character and he certainly needs no lessons on the facts of Premiership life.

"Three games into the season and people are saying this is a game we have GOT to win, we MUST get three points!" the Wanderers' boss acknowledged with a combination of sarcasm and frustration as he prepared for tomorrow's Reebok clash with Aston Villa.

"We've put that pressure on ourselves by losing the first two games but we can't afford to let it get to us."

Big Sam has had a hectic, sometimes highly frustrating few days made all the more uncomfortable by the circumstances that led to last Saturday's home defeat by Charlton

In between the frantic round of meetings and telephone calls that kept him away from the training ground while he was setting up pre-deadline deals, he has agonised over the missed chances and the defensive lapse that turned what could have been a victory stroll into a stumbling defeat.

"We should be sitting here with three points," he insists, "or, at the very least one point.

"It's very, very frustrating because it adds to the pressures, which you can well do without."

In theory, the solution is straightforward: Wanderers need to take their chances and make sure they stay tight at the back.

But they know that any shortcomings in either area will be ruthlessly punished.

"The bottom line for us last Saturday was that we created more chances in that one game than we did in two games we won at this stage last season - against Middlesbrough and Liverpool - while at the other end we just didn't defend properly in a situation which was not really a threat!

"It's not often you'll get four one-on-ones in a game but that's what we had with Henrik Pedersen early on, Ricardo Gardner not too long after, Youri Djorkaeff not too long after that, when Henrik should have had the penalty, and Kevin Nolan at the end.

"If we can create as many chances against Villa, I'll be satisfied but everyone knows that in the Premiership chances are usually hard to come by and if you don't take advantage of the ones that come along, you'll struggle. That's been one of the biggest disappointments so far for me.

"But even saying that, if we'd done our job defensively, we would have avoided defeat but we switched off for one moment and they took advantage.

"That's something we have to deal with."

At least Allardyce has the comfort of knowing he is not on his own. Before Wednesday night's 1-0 home win over Manchester City, Villa were pointless and goalless, heaping early-season pressure on their manager Graham Taylor. But the statistics didn't fool the Wanderers' boss, who suggested: "Graham obviously knew his team was playing well, as I could see when I saw them against Spurs.

"He knew they'd produced a lot of quality chances - as we did against Charlton - without taking them and must have felt they should have won the game. That's the story we are familiar with."