SAM Allardyce left his players to vent their anger on each other after Saturday's defeat at Pride Park.

"There's a few cups flying around ... and a few bottles," the Wanderers' boss said after bolting from the dressing room inquest. "Which is fine as far as I am concerned.

"But we should have had that controlled aggression on the pitch."

Allardyce was desperately disappointed to have nothing to show for a game in which Wanderers had more than their share of time, space and possession but nowhere near enough goalmouth action.

"We only have ourselves to blame for not performing in the final third. We had the game there for the taking right from the start. I've never seen us look so comfortable away from home and we've not taken advantage of it. I'm hugely disappointed.

"We got there time and time again - more than we have in any away game this season apart from the first game at Leicester - but we didn't exploit it and that's very disappointing considering how well we have been doing in front of goal in the last four away games."

Wanderers have been left to reflect on two missed opportunities, not only to put the break on a slide into the bottom half of the Premiership but to put even more daylight between them and the drop zone. Two single goal defeats in six days has undone much of the good work they did in the early weeks of the season and, although the overall performances at White Hart Lane and Pride Park were encouraging, the manager stressed again that all he is concerned with is results.

"The performance at Spurs was very good and you get bitterly disappointed when you don't get anything out of that," he reflected. "Saturday's performance wasn't as good as that but overall the team performance had so much going for it - except in the final third.

"It's about points not performances though. If performances are good they will more often than not get you the points but not in our case.

"This time we couldn't manage a goal while they scored from what was probably only a half chance, which was tucked away quite well by Malcolm Christie. We seemed to fall asleep as though the ball was going out of play. We should have dealt with it. Carbone ran on, Gudni (Bergsson) didn't fill the hole and Christie got the run on Mick Whitlow.

"It always looked like being one of those days when it wasn't going to go for us even though we had huge amounts of possession in the opposition's half. We needed something special in front of goal but we didn't get it."

Allardyce admits the two defeats have put pressure on Wanderers ahead of Saturday's home game against Charlton, who are on form having beaten Spurs 3-1 at The Valley on Saturday.

"Anything other than a positive result against Charlton will put extra pressure on us, which we've already got by not winning at home since the start of the season," he acknowledged. "But we'll let the lads mull over this one, pick up on a few points and try and put it right."