SAM Allardyce has urged his dejected players to use their brave Carling Cup exit as a springboard up the Premier League – insisting they can’t use it as an excuse.

The Rovers boss was left with a changing room of demoralised players on Wednesday night after crashing out of the Carling Cup semi final following a thrilling 6-4 defeat at Villa Park, but he is determined to draw on the positives.

Trailing 1-0 from the first leg, Rovers went agonisingly close to springing a cup upset until Gabriel Agbonlahor’s controversial goal and Chris Samba’s sending off changed the course of the game.

Rovers now face a crucial next Premier League month, with five consecutive winnable games, as Allardyce looks to improve upon their 12th position in the table.

Allardyce said: “I don’t know what the legacy of Wednesday night will be. I am very glad we don’t have a game on Saturday, that is for sure.

“I have got some totally and utterly dejected players and we have got to make sure they overcome this bitter, bitter disappointment and get on professionally with what we have to do now.

“That is look at the Premier League and work our way up as far as we can, and for me to say to them play like that and we won’t have a problem and we can enjoy working our way up the league.

“We can’t let this be a hangover going into the Premier League games because we can ill afford that.”

Croatian striker Nikola Kalinic continued to show his potential, after his £6million move from Hajduk Split, with two goals to take his tally to five in nine starts, and now he is looking for his first Premier League goal.

Martin Olsson’s display on the left will also have thrilled the Rovers fans, with Allardyce insisting the performance has given him a lot of food for thought ahead of next week’s visit of Wigan.

He said: “It is great to see Niko get his two goals, fantastic.

"It is just a shame they don’t mean anything for him now, and also Martin Olsson is emerging as a real good player for us.

“He took his goal fantastically well but it is hard to single out players because the team has played well.

“Obviously there are some areas where we can blame our team for the goals we gave away but the critical period was the decisions going against you and that has made a big difference.

“Of course some of the fault lies with us. We have conceded six goals and some of them we could have stopped.

"But the critical stage of the game is there for everyone to see.

"You have 42,000 fans moaning for a little bit and some stunned players because they are 2-0 down and then they have got a lifeline.

“To be fair to Villa they grasped it with both hands and we have been poor in some of our defending in the goals.

"But at the end of the day, two of the goals they got shouldn’t have been goals.”

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