NICOLAS Anelka is joining Bolton Wanderers in a record £8 million transfer.

After weeks of negotiations, Sam Allardyce finally got his man late last night when Anelka signed a four-year contract.

The 27-year-old French striker flew into Manchester yesterday afternoon to undergo a medical after Wanderers had agreed a 12m euro fee with the Turkish club, Fenerbahce.

The formalities of the transfer are expected to be finalised today, when Anelka will travel to London to link up with his new team-mates ahead of tomorrow's Premiership game at Charlton, although he will not be available for selection.

Allardyce, who has been striving for months to sign a top-quality striker, is delighted his persistence has paid off.

"It's been a long, drawn-out process, but we have finally managed to find that world class striker we were looking for," he said. "Nicolas is going to be a major force for us."

Anelka has been the Whites' top target since they missed out on Andrew Johnson in May. They had an interest in the PSV Eindhoven hit man, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, but the Dutch international was only ever a fall-back. When he joined Celtic yesterday in a £3.4m deal, it soon became evident that Allardyce was closing in on the France international.

The Anelka signing represents the biggest transfer coup in Wanderers' history, almost doubling the record fee set last summer when El-Hadji Diouf converted his loan from Liverpool into a permanent deal for a fee in the region of £4.5m "Generally at this club, we get a player like Nicolas when they are in their 30s, not in the prime of their career in their 20s," Allardyce said as he homed in on the gifted but temperamental striker who has now been traded for a total of £51.5m in a career, including spells at PSG, Arsenal, Real Madrid, Liverpool and Manchester City.