Blame me for slump: Diouf

El-Hadji Diouf has spoken for the first time about the spitting incident which shamed football and admitted he had let Bolton down.

The Senegal striker served a three-match ban for the offence and was also fined two weeks wages by indignant manager Sam Allardyce.

While he watched from the stand, Bolton lost all those games and six in total to go into free-fall.

But against West Brom, Diouf went from zero to hero by grabbing a face-saving equaliser with five minutes remaining at the Reebok Stadium.

He remains haunted by the incident and the ban, however, imposed for spitting at Portsmouth’s Arjan De Zeeuw.

“Before my suspension the team were playing well,” he said. “Then I get banned for three games and they lose them all. It is my fault.

“I am sick for Sam as he gives me a lot of confidence. I am also sick for the rest of the staff and the supporters. I am trying to forget (what happened). It is no good for me, for my club and for my family. What I want to do is focus on football and how I can help the team.”

Diouf, who is on loan from Liverpool until the end of the season, has indicated he would be happy to remain at Bolton.

He said: “This is a nice club. I don’t have pressure here. I just enjoy playing football and scoring goals.

“I am playing alongside people like Jay-Jay Okocha, Fernando Hierro, Ivan Campo and Kevin Nolan. They are a friendly team. We have made a good start to the new year, now we need to build on this result.”

Diouf levelled the score with a clinical finish after superb work in the build up from Campo and Nicky Hunt.

Allardyce joined the praise when he said: “There was a certain composure, certain calmness in Diouf’s play.

“He gets a lot of challenges against him because of the way he plays. He likes to retain the ball. He has got to resist the temptation to react against those and keep playing the game. There can be nothing better for him than scoring a goal like that.”

Allardyce felt Bolton should have had a penalty when Kevin Nolan’s shot was blocked by Ricardo Scimeca.

However, referee Mike Dean waved blame on to the annoyance of the Bolton boss.

He said: “It was a blatant penalty as Scimeca’s hand went right up in the air. I just can’t understand why he has not given it.

“That would have given us an opportunity to win a game, which we are so desperate to do. The luck has gone against us again, though.”

Allardyce decided to select 41-year-old goalkeeper Kevin Poole ahead of Jussi Jaaskelainen, explaining: “Jussi was rested. He is the only player we haven’t rested or taken off in this period.

“We gave him a break after 20 months of playing constantly.”

Striker Kevin Davies is likely to miss the match at Birmingham on Tuesday after suffering a hamstring injury.