LOVE EL HADJI DIOUF OR LOATHE HIM — and there cannot be many in the former camp — the Senegalese showman will always provide a talking point. The only problem at Ewood Park yesterday, as Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers traded blows in a tense Lancashire derby that exploded in a remarkable climax of two missed Blackburn penalties, was which of Diouf’s many contributions deserved most discussion.

Perhaps not the Bolton midfield player’s early berating of a ball boy for his tardiness in returning the ball, after which he was jeered throughout; nor the header that struck a post in the first half. Nor even the pin-point corner that he delivered for Iván Campo to head Bolton to a somewhat fortuitous victory, with his fourth goal of the season.

Again, it will be Diouf’s tendency to court controversy that will grab the attention. How Mike Dean, the referee, did not award a penalty in first-half stoppage time, when Diouf blatantly bodychecked Brett Emerton, will be between Dean and his priest this week. Naturally, Sam Allardyce, the Bolton manager, viewed it from another planet. “It was shoulder to shoulder,” he said. “Are you having a laugh?”

Mark Hughes, the Blackburn manager, did not see the joke after the defeat ended their eight-match unbeaten run in all competitions. “It was a penalty,” he said, “and it was more conclusive than the other two we got later. We’re just not getting the breaks at the moment.”

Zurab Khizanishvili then had a deflected header cleared off the goalline by Gary Speed. But if that summed up Blackburn’s bad luck, it was nothing compared with what befell them in a frenzied closing seven minutes.

Blackburn should already have had one penalty, when Quinton Fortune tugged at the shirt of Jason Roberts, when Dean spotted another Fortune foul on Roberts. Benni McCarthy shot low from the spot-kick and Jussi Jaaskelainen, the Bolton goalkeeper, saved spectacularly.

Three minutes later, Roberts tumbled in the middle of a Speed-Nicky Hunt sandwich, Dean awarded a second penalty and Jaaskelainen saved from Roberts in carbon-copy fashion. It was too much for Kevin Nolan, who, having picked up one caution for dissent amid the mayhem, was then handed a straight red card for having further harsh words with Dean.

At the end, Diouf emerged from the relative sanity of the substitutes’ bench, jumped on Jaaskelainen and then threw his shirt to the Bolton fans. Later, he will have set off on the A666 — the Devil’s Highway — for the ten miles back to Bolton. As always, he had left his imprint.