Every top manager has his badge of honour, worn with barely suppressed pride: Sir Alex Ferguson knocked Liverpool off their perch, Jose Mourinho was champion of Europe with a small club, Arsène Wenger turned Thierry Henry from an anonymous left-winger into the world's greatest centre-forward , Martin O'Neill won the treble in his first season at Celtic. And Sam Allardyce invented 4-3-3. Barely a day goes by without Allardyce reminding someone that, yes, it was he who introduced the vogue formation to English football long before Mourinho arrived on the scene. In reality, Bolton's system is more 4-1-2-3, but the point remains: every contemporary Premiership take on 4-3-3 stems from a formation that Allardyce patented.
And so does Bolton's success. Their outstanding achievements of the last few seasons have been inextricably linked to this system: the three in midfield, usually Ivan Campo and two fibrous runners, who provide a crucial screen for one of the Premiership's tightest defences, and the two wide forwards who buzz around to pick up knockdowns from Kevin Davies.
Now, with the signing of Nicolas Anelka, that formation seems untenable. Let's be clear on this: Anelka is a superb footballer, a bargain at £8m when compared to the relatively unproven quartet of Andy Johnson (£8.5m), Dirk Kuyt (£9m), Dimitar Berbatov (£10m) and Obafemi Martins (£10m), and all the guff over his temperament is just that: after El Hadji Diouf, taming Anelka will be small beer for Allardyce.
Maximising his abundant potential, however, is another matter. In tactical terms, it is hard to see how Anelka fits into Bolton's system. In style he is the polar opposite to Kevin Davies, so to play him alone up front would necessitate a sea change in Bolton's seemingly ingrained directness, but then to play him wide would negate his devastating capacity to kill defences with one burst in behind.
All of which points to 4-4-2, with Anelka and Davies up front. That, too, has its concerns: Allardyce would have to permanently sacrifice one of his midfield runners; and to play, for example, Diouf and Stelios wide in a 4-4-2 would put a lot of pressure on a defensive-midfield unit that has been as fundamental to Bolton's success as more ostensibly significant factors such as their set-piece threat and the fortress that is the Reebok Stadium.
There had been a sense this summer that Allardyce had taken Bolton as far as he could, but now he is armed with exactly what he wanted in order to take the next step: a 20-goals-a-season forward of genuine international class. It is a brave move, because Allardyce could have taken the easy option and stuck with a system that, all things being equal, guarantees Bolton mid-table security at worst.
Instead he has opted to fundamentally change to an established, successful modus operandi, a decision which carries considerable risk. Look at Gérard Houllier, who tried to purify Liverpool's game in the summer of 2003 and was out of a job within a year; or Ferguson, who broke up the greatest midfield quartet in British football history to accommodate Juan Veron and ended up killing a golden goose that was delivering a Premiership every year. In altering the status quo, Allardyce could leave Bolton in dire straits. Or it could be the genesis of something big. Either way, he should be applauded for taking the gamble.
