Diouf is a marked man, says Blackburn Rovers boss

The Rovers boss revealed he withdrew Diouf early in the second half to protect him from a second yellow card after claiming referee Howard Webb was out to get him.

The Senegalese midfielder was one of the Rovers’ main threats in the opening half of Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Stoke but, after receiving a harsh yellow card for dissent, Allardyce felt he was left with no choice.

Allardyce said: “It wasn’t a difficult decision to take him off, it was about protecting him in case he committed another foul that got him sent off. I don’t know what Dioufy did that wrong at all.

“It doesn’t look like he is one of Howard’s favourite players does he? He sent him off at Villa last year, and he was often more intent on what Dioufy was doing than what was actually happening on the field of play.

“It was the right thing to do because we have to protect our players and we have protect our situation and make sure we stay 11 v 11 on the field.”

While Diouf did look a constant menace, a mixture of a hostile Britannia Stadium welcome and the frustration of the afternoon seemed to be getting to him.

“He was obviously getting frustrated so we made sure we didn’t give Howard Webb the opportunity to send him off and change it,” said Allardyce.

“It had to be the case today unfortunately, the situation was where if El-Hadji may have committed another foul Howard Webb may have decided to give him two yellows and send him off.

“So it was better to keep eleven men on the field. We lost the game here last year because the referee made a really poor decision sending Chris Samba off in the first half, so we didn’t want to do that again.

“It is difficult at Stoke, they are very good at home and if you are down to 10 men then wherever you are then you are going to be lucky to get anything out of the game.

"So I made sure we kept eleven on the field.

“He was fine when I took him off. He was fine because he knew we didn’t want to go down to ten men.”