Crystal Palace were denied a 'blatant' penalty, says Sam Allardyce

Sam Allardyce bemoaned the referee's decision to deny his Crystal Palace side a "blatant" penalty during their 2-1 defeat at home against Swansea on Tuesday.

With the game goalless in the first half, Christian Benteke appeared to be tripped by Swansea goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski, only to be denied a spot-kick by referee Paul Tierney. 

Alfie Mawson put the Swans ahead shortly afterwards, while Angel Rangel struck a late winner after Wilfried Zaha had equalised for Palace.

"[It was a] blatant one on Benteke, I mean just outrageous the decision wasn't given," Allardyce told Sky Sports. "Paul is very young in terms of Premier League experience, and didn't want to give a major decision the right way, sadly for us. 

"At that stage of the game when we were struggling it would have meant a great lift for us and you may have seen a different result."

Palace were playing just two days after their defeat at Arsenal on New Year's Day, and Allardyce admitted he should have probably made a few more than two changes to his tired team.

"We had Wilfried scoring a fantastic goal, but when we needed just to shut it down we didn't and let them sneak the winner," he said. "Whether you're feeling tired or not you've got to show more effort than that. We change the system a little bit because I was just baffled to see our players lumping it up to Benteke [in the first half]. 

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"I had to ask the question at half-time of who told them to do that. If you're going to play it off Benteke do it like Swansea did off [Fernando] Llorente. Play it to his feet and chest then he'll hold it up and we can spring off him.

"Perhaps I picked the wrong side and should have made more changes. Looking back now I should've changed four or five and put fresher legs on and we might have got a result.

"I take a bit of responsibility myself, but I've only been here for a short time and it's difficult to know what the players are and aren't capable of, but I'm getting to know that very quickly."

Zaha will be sorely missed in January as he heads off to the African Cup of Nations, and Allardyce revealed his plans to head into the transfer market to cover his loss.

"It's not only Zaha but [Bakary] Sako," he said. "I think from our point of view and like everyone else in our position we have to do something about it. So we have to go into the market, whether permanently or on loan, and fill those gaps.

"So if I'm saying anything at the moment I need one or two new faces without any question of a doubt to lift what's been an unfortunate and ongoing scenario at Crystal Palace in terms of results."