Sam backs misfiring Anelka
03 Nov 2006 - 11:05:36
Bolton Wanderers boss Sam Allardyce has backed struggling striker Nicolas Anelka to soon get among the goals and silence his doubters.
The much-travelled 27-year-old Frenchman has failed to score in his seven Premiership appearances for the club although he did find the net in the Carling Cup win at Walsall in September.
Allardyce is unperturbed though, saying: "I think that a settling period for Nicolas is always something that we have to be well aware of and certainly we haven't put any pressure on the fact he's not scored a goal.
"I think that we also have to make sure that as a team we realise his strengths and give him a little bit more support. I think if we'd given him a little bit better service he would have put the ball in the back of the net.
"But we're all happy because we're winning football matches so we'll still try to work at that and still try to make sure he can get off the mark but like I've said before we're always happy to share the goals out at Bolton.
"We think that's more important than having one particular player score 20 goals and then nobody else getting any.
"We do want somebody to get into double figures this year because it's going to help us achieve our ultimate goal of trying to get back into Europe if that's possible.
"Hopefully it will be him (Anelka), but if it's not I hope it's somebody else. More importantly I hope it's more than one.
"At the moment we've survived this period by the fact we've overcome our injury problems, we've rolled up our sleeves and we've been very determined to use our qualities to the very best of our abilities."