NIGEL Clough was unhappy with a number of decisions made by the match officials but the manager felt his Derby County team had themselves to blame for not beating Ipswich Town.
Conor Sammon struck the woodwork and Jamie Ward had a penalty saved in the first half of the Championship clash at Pride Park on Saturday.
In the second half, Chris Martin finished off a sweeping move only to be flagged offside and the Rams had a strong shout for a penalty waved away after substitute Michael Jacobs went down under a challenge from Aaron Cresswell.
Rams defender Kieron Freeman was also fouled seconds before Paul Coutts lost possession and Carlos Edwards fired Ipswich's winning goal in added time.
Clough was deeply frustrated and angry after the 1-0 defeat.
"We've lost a game that we didn't deserve to," he said.
"We know the goal that was disallowed wasn't offside, having seen the replay again.
"We might have had a penalty near the end. It was certainly a foul on Michael Jacobs. I'm not sure if it was in the area or not but it was a foul.
"And it was a blatant foul on Kieron Freeman just before Ipswich's goal. Nine times out of 10 you get them.
"It was one of those days when any number of things happened.
"We did not put our chances away, the best one being the penalty in the first half.
"We can blame decisions and everything - and they certainly didn't help - but more than anything we have ourselves to blame for not winning."
Derby were looking for a fourth consecutive victory, something they last achieved in January 2012, and a win would have seen them close the gap on the top six, given the other results.
But it was the fact they lost the game that left Clough bitterly disappointed.
"It's hard to take because we dominated for the majority of the game and it's incredibly frustrating to lose in the manner we did," said Clough.
"We didn't start as well as we normally do at home, but once we got into our stride about half way through the first half we played some great stuff for 20-odd minutes.
"We had quite a few chances and if we had taken one of them, especially in the first half, we probably would have gone on to win the game.
"What I've been trying to instill in the players is that, come the 93rd minute, as much as we'd like to win the game, don't lose it. Take the 0-0. take the clean sheet, but don't lose.
"Yes, we would love to have won, but the disappointment is you end up losing.
"It is as tough to take as any defeat this season."
Clough was unhappy with the way Derby conceded the goal so late in the game.
"We didn't see the game out well enough, which we have actually been good at for the majority of this season," he said.
"Ipswich hardly had a shot on goal but we lost the ball in the middle of the pitch needlessly in the last minute of injury time.
"We allowed them to run towards our goal and the ball ended up in the back of the net.
"In some ways you encourage the player to shoot from that diatance and it was a fantastic strike. One of the centre-halves maybe could have come and closed the ball down but it was giving the ball away in the middle of the pitch that was the key.
"It really does stick in your craw when you lose these sort of games. I've seen and played in so many of them over the years where a team barely has a shot at goal and then sticks one in the top corner in the 93rd minute.
"It feels like a missed opportunity to get another three points on the board and get us mathematically safe, or very close to it."
Derby are on 54 points with five matches left. They are eight points away from the play-offs and seven above the bottom three.
