Smith admitted that the Arsenal connection had haunted his team this season. Danish striker Nicklas Bendtner, who is on line at Birmingham, had knocked Wrexham out of the Carling Cup and now Lupoli won this third round tie for Derby.
Smith added: "It seems as if Arsenal are doing us all over the place! We got knocked out of the League Cup at Birmingham and we come here and they've got another one. I just wish they would lend me a couple!"
On the game Smith said
"I thought we had a little spell at 2-1 when we possibly could have sneaked a result out of it. We had a chance which just went past a post.
"If we had kept the score at 2-1 I think that would have been fair but they were excellent and we could have no complaints about the result.
"I think they are as good a team as I have seen this season and there were times when I wanted to applaud them."
Derby manager Billy Davies said: "These games are all potential banana skins and the pitch was a bit tricky today. But we were in a composed position until we shot ourselves in the foot through complacency and sloppiness.
"We gave them a wonderful lift and after that they had a real go at us but we showed good spirit which we needed to finish the game off."
Lupoli has recently been linked with a move back to Italy but Davies said: "He stays here for the rest of the season.
"He's never mentioned anything about Italy to me and I think a lot would depend on where Derby are at the end of the season.
"Anything is possible and he might want to go back or he may get an offer to go back. He may also want to stay at Derby if we are in a higher division. But I am looking forward to working with him for the remainder of the season."