THE accent was on defence today as Wanderers attempted to consign the heartache and the injustice of Monday's defeat at Spurs to the history books.

Sam Allardyce confessed to finding it difficult to come to terms with the events of White Hart Lane, where Teddy Sheringham snatched a 3-2 victory for the Londoners with an 86th minute header.

But now that he has, he is determined to make Derby County feel the backlash at Pride Park tomorrow.

The manager has given no indication that he will make changes in an effort to get the required response. But he has pinpointed deficiencies at the back as one of the main reasons for the failure to take at least the point he felt his team's overall performance deserved, which suggests that he will at least recall Paul Warhurst, who was suspended for the Spurs game, to the defensive midfield role he plays so effectively.

"I couldn't accept the defeat very well, to be honest," he admitted. "I travelled home and had a day or two reflecting and didn't know quite why we got beat.

"But I've now got one or two reasons which we have discussed. We had a bit of bad luck but I think there was a little bit of poor defending and wrong decisions at the wrong time by the officials that cost us what should have been at least a point.

"The overall performance was very good, the attacking play was very, very good but the bottom line is that we're not defending properly for short periods of time. Two of the three goals we conceded came about after we'd had an attack and that's a major disappointment because we hadn't covered the right areas.

"It's a great shame because I've never been so confident about us winning a game for a long time as I was at half time. I just told them to go out and do what they'd been doing. But the game changed in that first couple of minutes after half-time!"