LAWRIE Sanchez has told his defenders it's up to them to keep Blues in the promotion race - until injured goal king Sean Devine returns after Christmas. LAWRIE Sanchez has told his defenders it's up to them to keep Blues in the promotion race - until injured goal king Sean Devine returns after Christmas.

The Blues boss says the rearguard, which has conceded just five goals in eight games this season, must continue to keep things tight because without last season's injured top-scorer Wanderers are not capable of scoring enough goals.

Saturday's reversal at Rotherham was Blues' second successive 1-0 defeat and Sanchez admitted his side - which has only scored seven in eight league games, and three of those were the result of penalties - lacks the firepower to come from behind.

He said: 'We haven't got enough goals in our side that we come back from a goal down. We've done it once this season and we've been unable to do it since.'

He is now hoping Blues will keep enough clean sheets and scrape enough wins to stay among the contenders until Devine is fit.

He said: 'If we can keep in touch until Sean returns I'd strongly fancy us when he gets back.'

He added: 'Seven goals in eight games says a lot about us. We're not scoring and we've been on top in most of the games.'

Even with Devine's 23 league goals last season, Wanderers scored 12 goals fewer than any of the play-off or promoted sides. Wycombe scored 56 in 46 matches while Stoke, who sneaked into the play-offs in sixth place, scored 68.

Of the other promoted, or play-off sides, champions Preston scored 74, Burnley got 69, Gillingham blasted 79, while Millwall and Wigan got 76 and 72.

Wanderers' normally watertight defence conceded an uncharacteristic sloppy goal at Rotherham, when they failed to mark at a corner allowing Guy Branston to score, but apart from that Wycombe asked the questions without scoring.

They hit the woodwork twice, through Andy Rammell and Paul McCarthy, and Jamie Bates and Michael Simpson both had free-kicks saved.

Afterwards Sanchez said: 'The honeymoon period is over. The players haven't played badly but we need to start putting the ball in the back of the net.

'Rotherham, with all due respect, will be at the bottom end of the table rather than the top, but they gave their lot. It was a shock to our system. We thought we could just come here and take the points.

'The goal was sloppy from beginning to end. It was poor marking and it was all the things good teams don't do.

'We had chances without ever being really convincing. It wasn't about playing well it was about grinding out a result at a horrible place, playing horrible football. But we aren't good enough at this moment to do that.

'We can pass the ball nicely at times, we can look good but there's a difference between looking good and being good.

'If we aren't going to beat the lower teams we aren't going to do anything,' he added.