Sam Allardyce left his imprint on Bolton, just as they shaped him, but as he returned to one club he both played for and managed, he suggested he will instead borrow his blueprint from another. A decade ago, he threatened to take Bolton into the top four. Extricating Sunderland from the bottom three last season has more pertinence to his current plight, however, and he hopes history will repeat itself 300 miles further south and 12 months later.
January proved pivotal in his Sunderland salvage bid. Allardyce is again targeting upgrades at Crystal Palace, wondering how many ways he can split his budget without quantity replacing quality, and confounding the orthodox wisdom that striking additions are crucial at this time of year.
He issued a warning that those who do not buy regress. “In every window, if you don’t [spend] and the rest do, you are making your life even more difficult to stay in the Premier League,” the Crystal Palace manager said. “It’s that simple.”
The prospect of “astronomical” prices worries him. Fees may determine the number of incomings. “If it gets too expensive it may be two, if it can be spread to three it would be great,” Allardyce added. “It’s about the quality. They have to be better than what we have. Similar to Sunderland: we did four [deals] and it made all the difference to staying up.”
His crucial recruits then were the centre-back Lamine Koné and Jan Kirchhoff, the defender he deployed in front of the back four. They helped Sunderland end the season with four clean sheets in their final eight games. Now the priorities are similar. Allardyce will spend another winter window searching for solidity. He wants a central defender and a left-back.
“Zeki Fryers is only left-footed left-back in the club,” he said. “That’s a position we’ve identified. We only have three central defenders, so if one gets suspended and one gets injured it would be a struggle. This team hasn’t kept any clean sheets. If we can keep eight or nine in the next 18 matches we’ll be safe.”
Numbers underpin Allardyce’s logic. Palace have scored only one league goal fewer than Manchester United but have let in 15 more than Middlesbrough, the team immediately above them.
“We’ve got quality players who create chances,” he added. “We need to finish them but we have to start with clean sheets if we want to get out of trouble.” While Wilfried Zaha is gone to the Africa Cup of Nations, his attacking armoury has nevertheless been boosted, courtesy of his predecessor.
Alan Pardew signed Loïc Rémy but injuries meant the Frenchman’s bow was postponed until Saturday’s 0-0 draw at Bolton.
Rémy struck a post and showed signs of sharpness in a display that may further encourage Allardyce to concentrate his recruitment drive on defenders. Even with his success recruiting them last season, Sunderland almost went down. It left Allardyce with few illusions about the scale of his task at Selhurst Park. “Tough as hell,” he said.
The Bolton manager, Phil Parkinson, is also looking to reinforce his squad for the promotion push from League One, having dropped to third on Saturday because of their cup involvement. “We have the transfer embargo which is a great frustration for us because we have a restriction on the numbers we can have in the squad, but there is a little bit of room for manoeuvre,” he said.
“Between myself and the chairman, by the end of the window we will move things around and make sure this squad is strong going into the second half of the season. The most important thing is we don’t want to lose our best young players like Zach Clough and Josh Vela, who we need to develop with the club and grow back with the club. That is as important as adding anyone to the squad.”
