Blackburn Rovers boss Sam Allardyce the standard of his team's defending for the first two goals had ultimately let them down as they lost 3-0 at Stoke City.

"The encouraging part of our first-half performance was obviously the barrage of corners that we put into Stoke's box, causing them untold problems," Allardyce said.

"But with Franco Di Santo's header from six yards out off Morten (Gamst Pedersen)'s cross, he should have at the very least hit the target, and that's one of the reasons why we didn't get ourselves back in the game.

"Then Chris Samba gives us a monster header and I think it's Whitehead whose arm has pushed the ball wide of the post and the referee hasn't seen it, so that's a big changing factor in the game.

"But the two goals we conceded were really poor defensively from our point of view.

"Overall, really poor defending in two situations cost us the game."