Allardyce searches for miracle amid injury crisis for Wanderers

It seems incongruous to be discussing the thrills of football management with Sam Allardyce as he wipes the sleep from his eyes and sips a strong coffee having returned home from a Carling Cup defeat at Charlton at dawn, but then the issue is pertinent for the man at the helm of Bolton Wanderers. His third-placed team in the Premiership host top-of-the-table Manchester United this afternoon and, contrary to appearances, the 52-year-old is re-energised.

Allardyce may have felt like walking away from the Reebok Stadium for several reasons of late: the disappointment of missing out on the England job, a seven-year itch at his current place of work and the controversy of that Panorama documentary that remains a matter for his lawyers. But success has proven Allardyce's release.

"Winning football matches is what it is all, you just get a huge relief as a manager when you are winning," he said. "When you look at the volatile world we're in, and you see the coverage some of my fellow managers are receiving, you wake up every Sunday morning and are relieved it is not you. You keep working hard to try and make sure the spotlight doesn't turn on you.

"I am the third-longest serving manager in the Premiership now after Sir Alex [Ferguson] and Arsène Wenger and I've been here seven years. That shows how many comings and goings happen in the Premiership, and it is even more frequent in the lower divisions."

Though Liverpool were accounted for in Bolton's last home game, Allardyce insists he requires "a miracle" to record a first league win at the Reebok Stadium over United today. Suspension has robbed him of his influential captain Kevin Nolan, while El-Hadji Diouf, Quinton Fortune and Nicolas Anelka, selfless in the victory at Ewood Park last Sunday, are all injury doubts. But that can work in a side's favour.

He explains: "We are still coming through our worst injury spell in my time in the Premiership and that gives you and everyone else the confidence and the encouragement to believe we can be a force this year if certain things go in our favour."