SAM Allardyce has admitted his Blackburn side were caught short in terms of fitness on Saturday.

The Rovers boss was furious with the manner his defenders gifted Tottenham a 4-2 win, and fears playing two games in the space of four days proved too much.

The impressive 2-1 win at Newcastle on Wednesday was their first midweek Premier League fixture of the season and, with more ahead in the coming months, Allardyce knows the White Hart Lane debacle has to be a one-off.

He said: “Playing on Wednesday has left our defence looking a little tired to me, perhaps that is what has caused them to make the mistakes.

"You have to cope with that in the Premier League though.

“It is the hardest league in the world so when the games come thick and fast we have to be ready and prepared to do it and we weren't defensively.

“We looked behind in terms of our fitness. The extra day Spurs had having played on the Tuesday and us playing on the Wednesday caught us out a little bit.

“Perhaps that is why we were sloppy with our defending, but this happens in the Premier League and you have to be able to cope with it.”

While Rovers remain just two points off the drop zone, sitting in 15th in the table, they are still just four points away from Bolton in fifth and very much in the pack.

Allardyce was quick to point out the team’s successes of the last seven days, which included their first back-to-back victories of the season, insisting Saturday’s loss should not detract from a good week.

He said: “Two previous games and six points is an outstanding back to back win, our first of the season.

"We have two away wins already. Disappointing on Saturday but the overall week has been pretty good .

“That is our heaviest defence of the season and really shouldn't have been that based on the chances we have created.

"But at the end of the day it is still two wins out of three, it has been a good week.

"We would have liked it to have been better and to have finished off the week undefeated.

“But we got what we deserved because we didn’t deserve any more by how badly we defended.

"Nothing to do with the attacking side – it couldn't have been any better apart from our finishing could have been more clinical and we could have had a bit more luck.

“It is hard to take, I thought it was really sloppy from the defenders – Paul Robinson excluded.

"The rest of the players did a job and played very, very well but it’s worthless being good attacking if we are going to defend like that.”