Champions League Talk Premature For Allardyce

By Mark Heys
January 23 2006

Sam Allardyce was refusing to get carried away with talk of Champions League football as Bolton Wanderers recorded their twelve clean sheet of the season on Saturday when keeping out Manchester City.

Bolton currently lie in seventh place in the league but have two games in hand on the teams in and around them in the Premiership so a fourth placed position is well within their sights.

However, Allardyce was just delighted to have won the game against City due to his depleted resources and states that the club will be successful if they maintain their good defensive habits on home turf.

"I don't know about the Champions League, I am just happy winning this game with the few players I've got. They are covering up for our shortage of players. It was a tremendous performance and a tremendous effort from the players.

"That's our 12th clean sheet of the season - the best we have ever done. If we keep in that mode at home it is going to bring us a lot of success."