Wanderers throw points away again IT doesn't always follow that managers who were accomplished defenders in their playing days produce teams with strong defences. But you can't imagine Sam Allardyce sitting back and letting Wanderers continually shoot themselves in the foot.

He was a no-nonsense defender and he has a reputation for being a no-nonsense manager.

Never mind what his predecessor, Colin Todd, might advise about the wisdom of changing the way the team plays, if they don't cut out the suicidal tendencies, the season is going to turn into a long, hard grind.

Todd suggested to Sky TV viewers before yesterday's Carrow Road clash that he'd left Allardyce with a crop of quality players and it would be unwise for his successor to discourage them from displaying their undoubted talents.

But the new manager has seen three precious points dropped in the week since he was handed the reins and there were no prizes for guessing which aspect was worrying him most when he said: "The game isn't all about passing and pretty football."

The game is about winning. If you play well, you aim to win, if you don't play well enough to win, you make sure you don't lose.

In successive games, Allardyce has seen Waderers gift late goals to the opposition when they should have had points in the bag.

They should have beaten Crewe but only managed a point then, although Bruce Rioch was justified in his claim that Norwich fully deserved yesterday's win, they looked like salvaging a draw until the generous side of their nature intervened once more. Ricardo Gardner's well-taken equaliser 16 minutes from time had brought the Canaries down to earth with an almighty crash - so decisively, in fact, that a bold betting man might have put his money on a Bolton win!

But it counted for nothing seven minutes later when hesitancy reared its ugly head in the penalty area as the wind and the ball played tricks on the Bolton defenders. There had already been confusion when Andy Todd, who had done a solid job in midfield before filling in at centre-back for the injured Mark Fish, thought he'd dealt with the threat from Iwan Roberts and was letting the ball bounce out for a goal-kick . . . not realising Darren Eadie was lurking.

To Todd's horror the ball stayed in play again and Eadie made him pay - the chance eventually falling for Darel Russell to claim his second goal of the game. "We came back into the game and took our goal ever so well," Allardyce lamented, "and I thought we'd killed the game off and killed the opposition off in terms of being an attacking force. I really thought it disheartened them and it looked like it was going to run out 1-1.

"But we then chose to gift the opposition a second goal."

Seconds later Wanderers were doubly handicapped when Paul Warhurst was sent off for a second bookable challenge on Russell in the space of just nine minutes.

Warhurst was furious with the decision, claiming he had not touched the Norwich goalscorer, who didn't sound so sure himself later when he admitted: "Warhurst might have caught me but I slipped as well. But it's not for me to make the decisions. That's up to the referee."

Allardyce reserved judgment until he could watch the match video he held in his hand but he felt the reaction of the Norwich players didn't help Warhurst's cause.

"Paul says he didn't touch the player," he explained, "and I'll only know that when I've looked at the video to see whether he did or he didn't. If he did it was a silly thing to do. "But the influx of players and the mayhem that followed caused the ref to react. If they'd all picked themselves up and got on with the game, the referee might have got on with the game too. If he did catch him it's two bookable offences and you can't argue with that but, if he didn't, he's a little unfortunate."

That apart, Wanderers can have no real complaints today as they sit level-pegging with Norwich with identical records: played 13, won 4, drawn 4, lost 5.

They never seriously looked like claiming their secod away win of the season and, such was their first half performance that they couldn't have grumbled if they'd been a couple of goals down at the interval.

Jussi Jaaskelainen, whose misjudgment had gifted Crewe a point, made three vital saves - two from Roberts, one from Russell - and Fish had produced two of his trademark last-gasp tackles to deny Eadie whose pace and timing had beaten the offside flag. The second almost defied belief as the England U-21 star looked certain to score before the South African stuck out that telescopic leg of his and deflected the ball for a corner. But it proved a costly interception as 10 minutes later Fish was forced to withdraw with a groin injury, another bitter blow for Allardyce in his first week which has seen him robbed of the versatile Robbie Elliott for up to two months and his two senior keepers - Keith Branagan and Steve Banks - also laid up.

Jaaskelainen, previously third coice, went into the game with his confidence in question but he emerged with praise.

"Jussi kept us in the game and you've got to give him a lot of credit," skipper Neil Cox said. "He went into the game under pressure with one or two people having digs at him but one of his saves was world class. And, if he hadn't made the saves he did, we might have gone in 2-0 down at half time."

Wanderers hadn't managed to strike any kind of attacking rhythm in the first half and were woefully short on penetration. But they'd survived and the plan was to build on the foundation Jaaskelainen had laid with his shut-out.

But Norwich - solid at the back with three centre-halves, productive with a busy midfield quartet and dangerous with their attacking trio - got the breakthrough six minutes after the interval when Jimmy Phillips got a clean header on Eadie's free-kick only to see the ball fall to Russell, who sidestepped Cox to finally beat the Finn.

Ironically it was Wanderers who were lifted by the goal and it was Rioch rather than Allardyce, who looked the more worried. With good reason too when Wanderers sent on Bo Hansen.

It proved an inspired substitution as the Dane's first touch paved the way for Eidur Gudjohnsen to deliver the pass for Gardner to outpace Fleming and beat the advancing Andy Marshall with the sweetest of low left-footers.

Gardner might have wrapped it up if he'd shown more composure and better accuracy when Dean Holdsworth powered his way past Darren Kenton to lay on a second chance.

At that point Wanderers were consoling themselves with a point!

"We'd failed to cope with Norwich's system but, when we went a goal down, we had our best spell of the game," a perplexed Allardyce reflected. "Why we should have to go a goal down before we start to play is something we're going to have to work on!"

It looks like that list is growing.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.