SAM Allardyce has never taken a backward step in his life and he isn't going to start now.

Five years into his Reebok revolution, Bolton Wanderers were sitting pretty on Saturday night, fourth in the Premiership and ahead of Manchester United, Liverpool and Newcastle.

Big Sam was happy, deliriously so as he was heard singing his favourite scoreline "One-nil to the Wanderers!" as he vanished down the tunnel. He was in party mood with plenty to celebrate: his best start to a Premiership season leading up to his 50th birthday and the fifth anniversary of his appointment, but he was still not satisfied.

"We've under-achieved," said the hardest of task-masters as he issued one of his characteristic reality checks, counting the points that got away in previous games - the failure to beat Manchester United and Birmingham, the slip-up at West Brom.

Wanderers are not getting greedy but progress is the name of Allardyce's game and experience has taught him there is such a fine dividing line between success and failure at Premiership level that squandered points can prove costly in the extreme.

Hence the importance of the narrowest of victories over the poorest of sides.

Had Kevin Davies not managed to take advantage of a slack piece of Palace defending to head the only goal of an uninspiring game past Gabor Kiraly's outstretched arm in the first minute of first-half overtime, the mood might have been much more sombre.

Wanderers, for all their courage, commitment and common sense in dealing with the disruption caused by the accidental clash of heads between Ivan Campo and Gary Speed after just 13 minutes, could easily have been embarrassed by one of the league's lesser lights, as they were at West Brom a fortnight earlier.

That they won a game in which they had not played particularly well suggests they may, after all, have what it takes to stay with the leading pack. Successful teams, Allardyce had pointed out beforehand, win games when they don't play well.

The quality might well have been lacking at times - small wonder with Jay Jay Okocha sidelined, Campo on his way to hospital by half time and the rhythm repeatedly being interrupted by the bloodied Speed having to change his shirt five times - but there was a spirit and determination about the Wanderers as they emerged victorious for the first time in five attempts.

"One of the most important things to me has been not to let slip the best start we've ever had," Allardyce said with a combination of delight and relief.

"We got 15 points from 10 games in our first season, which to be honest was a bit of a fluke.

"We've got 15 points out of nine this time and that's an under-achievement. What we've done up to now is a great indication of our progress.

"This time the progress was solid resilience, not brilliant. We dug in when we needed to, when we could play we tried to and when we got forward we did it with quality and made lots of chances. We should have converted more or at least hit the target so we've still got that to work on.

"But we got a magnificent clean sheet which is the all-important thing about staying in the top half of the Premiership."

Davies marked his 50th start for Wanderers with a well-deserved second goal of the season, his first having come in the 1-0 victory over Liverpool. The bustling centre-forward, who missed the West Brom game with a rib injury, epitomised the Whites' determination, refusing to give any Palace player within his range a moment's peace.

And he summed up what Wanderers were all about on the day of their 100th Premiership home game, when he said: "We love a one-niller. We grafted and we battled quite well. A lot of blood has been spilled for it so we're especially happy with the three points.

"We had to get back to basics, obviously, after not winning in four and it was always going to be a difficult game. We got disrupted a lot first half with the clash between Ivan and Speedo but we limited them to not many chances and managed to nick a goal ourselves.

"It was scrappy first half and we lost our shape a bit with Speedo going off and coming on and players having to change round and play in different positions. We're professional enough to know to drop players in and cover but at one stage we had nine men on the pitch, then 10 ... and it was very disruptive. But the last 10 minutes of the first half we started applying the pressure a little bit and they starting panicking and we never looked back.

"With the draws and the defeat, it was important to get back on track and, hopefully, we'll move up the table again, which is where we want to be."

For all it has improved this season, Wanderers can't boast the squad strength of the clubs they hope to be competing with in the top six, a point that was starkly illustrated when, with Okocha and Fernando Hierro unavailable and Campo sadly out of the equation, Allardyce was running out of midfield options.

But he got a heroic performance out of Kevin Nolan - who ran himself almost to a standstill just 12 days after an operation on his ankle - and an unexpected contribution from Stelios, who started on the right of the front three before switching impressively to join Speed and Nolan in the midfield.

"I found that Stelios having to move into midfield ended up being a bonus for us," Allardyce said in praise of the Greek.

"Out of adversity you can find somebody who is going to turn a game for you and I thought his contribution in the midfield three was outstanding. He was my man of the match and he got it after having to play in a different position and doing it very well."

Stelios was denied his second goal in successive games when Kiraly kept out his shot that took a slight deflection off Davies and Henrik Pedersen was frustrated twice in a minute as Wanderers tried to ram home their advantage in the second half.

But they were lucky not to be pegged back in between when referee Neale Barry insisted on sending Speed off for his fifth costume change early in the second half - an advantage Palace failed to capitalise on when Danny Granville hit the bar from close range.

It was the best Iain Dowie's men had to offer after the pacy and prolific Andrew Johnson had caused a few early scares.

Bruno N'Gotty appeared to escape a close penalty call when he was caught unawares by the nippy Palace striker after just three minutes but video replays showed the Scunthorpe official got that decision correct - unlike the one he definitely got wrong when Emmerson Boyce brought down El-Hadji Diouf at the other end.

This was not Wanderers at their fluent best but it was a shining example of the teamwork Allardyce has worked so hard to generate in his five years - the backroom staff working in close harmony with the players.

Ricardo Gardner looked as fresh as a daisy as he worked well to cope with the pace of the Palace wide men, just five hours after flying back from World Cup duty with Jamaica.

There is clearly much more to Premiership success than meets the eye - and Wanderers appear to have it sussed.