Allardyce blasts ref and players

SAM ALLARDYCE left Goodison Park spitting venom in all directions — but mainly at rookie Premiership referee Howard Webb.

The South Yorkshire official was blamed for all the ills that saw Bolton lose a 2-1 lead under siege from third-placed Everton in a captivating final quarter of this wonderfully entertaining game.

Allardyce claimed Webb was not up to the pressures of the top flight and said he was swayed by a baying home crowd.

But you sense what really riled Allardyce was the fact Everton beat Bolton at their own game and that his well-drilled side could not handle the pressure themselves.

Bolton were criticised by Jose Mourinho for being one dimensional.

You know what you are going to get when you face the Reebok outfit the ball will be fired into your box.

Kevin Davies torments defenders with good, old-fashioned centre-forward arts. Teams crumble under such sustained, and perfectly orchestrated, pressure. Trouble is, Everton did not!

They responded with almost identical tactics, a siege of set-pieces and crosses that eventually broke Bolton's will.

Allardyce launched into Webb for allowing a twice-taken free-kick, quite rightly penalising obvious encroachment. He blasted the official for a string of debatable decisions that went against his men.

But in the end Allardyce blamed his own players for not being able to cope, and that was the reality of this cracking Lancashire derby.

Allardyce said: "The crowd had a massive influence on the referee and he turned his decisions in their favour. It is disappointing when you see officials actually being turned by the amount of jeering and shouting towards him.

"You could see what happened to him because some of the free-kicks given against us were petty to say the least and some we were not getting when we deserved them."

But the Bolton boss hit at the real villains, claiming: "In those final minutes we gave away a daft free-kick and then two corners so their winner came from pressure we brought on ourselves by not dealing with what they did in those last minutes.

"The ultimate responsibility lies with us. You can go on about the referee, and he was poor, but it is down to ourselves for having a lead taken away from us twice. We should have done a lot better.

"We were coasting and comfortable and all of a sudden the referee has had a major influence on the game.

"I can point at my players and say you didn't do your job, and they did allow themselves to get a little too frustrated about the decisions that were going against them.

"We have to be mentally stronger than that, then we can tell everybody how bad the referee was after we have got the result.

"To me he looked like he couldn't cope with the pressure of the Premiership. It doesn't matter whether they know the rules or not, if they haven't got that right mental strength they will waver and in the end that makes them not good enough to be out there in the first place."

Everton were behind twice to excellent Davies goals. A Duncan Ferguson header and then a controversial, twice-taken Thomas Gravesen free-kick got them level. Salt was rubbed in very open wounds by Radhi Jaidi's late own goal.

It is Bolton who usually put opponents under such intense aerial pressure; this time Everton did it better.

Everton manager David Moyes said: "They are tremendously difficult to handle with their tactics. They are very, very good at what they do and that is all credit to Sam Allardyce because of the way he has them organised."