Big Sam wants Nic to fire Wanderers into Europe

The Frenchman scored his ninth of the season to end a miserable four-match run that threatened to wreck the Whites' European ambitions.

Now the Reebok boss wants his record signing to hit the sort of purple patch he enjoyed earlier in the season, when he inspired a run of six wins in eight games.

"I hope that just kicks him on to go on a little run again," Allardyce said. "He scored seven in eight when he went on the last run and I hope he can do that again and keep us in the top six."

Allardyce was honest enough to admit Wanderers did not play well in what was a woefully poor game at Vicarage Road, but he delighted in the result and in Anelka's latest instalment on the £8million fee that brought him to the Reebok from Fenerbahce in August.

"Anelka proved why we paid the money we did for him," he said.

"He's our top goal scorer and the difference between us having more wins this season rather than draws."

Allardyce counted heads as well as counting his blessings after seeing Wanderers play their way back into Champions League contention.

Just a day after facing what he described as the first "injury crisis" of the season, he had such an embarrassment of riches, that he couldn't find a place in his squad for either regular substitute, Ricardo Vaz Te, or new signing, David Thompson.

Anelka and Abdoulaye Faye passed fitness tests, leaving Kevin Davies as the only first teamer unavailable for selection.

Allardyce even had options in defence, where he chose Tal Ben Haim in favour of Ricardo Gardner at left-back.

And although it was Anelka who inspired the first Premiership win since the turn of the year, it was the unexpected squad strength that gave the Wanderers boss high hopes for the rest of the season.

"Putting Tal in at left-back was a measure of the fact that we had more players to choose from than we've had for a long time, which is a good sign," Allardyce added.

"When you consider players like Tommo and Vaz Te didn't even make the bench, that's a luxury we haven't had for the last five or six weeks.

"I've been putting the young lad, Blajez Augustyn, on the bench and now I've got a couple of pros who I have to leave out, which can only be good from our point of view. We can rotate the subs now."

With more than half his squad away on international duty, Allardyce can only hope his good fortune on the injury front continues.

In the meantime, he has encouraged Iranian Andranik Teimourian to maintain the standards he showed in a 40-minute substitute appearance and told Thompson to press for a place in the squad for next Sunday's early afternoon Reebok clash with Fulham.

"He can have a good week with us training and then he can be in the squad again and available for selection," the manager said of the midfielder he signed from Portsmouth on transfer deadline day.

Allardyce, meanwhile, has played down reports that he is about to sign the Spanish midfielder Cesar, who is a free agent after being released from his contract at Levante.

"I'm always interested in a free agent, but I don't know that we are going to get one now," he said.

Watford manager Adrian Boothroyd said: "It was not a good performance from us, let's not gloss over anything.

"It was a bad game and we contributed to that enormously.

"We had an opportunity to get something from this game because, as good as Bolton are, they didn't play particularly well, but we never turned up.

"I expected us to get points but we didn't turn up.

"I won't do anything other than tell the truth and I won't have a go at my players individually, but we just can't play like that and expect to get out of what we are in.

"It doesn't happen very often but it can't happen again from now until the end of the season.

"We have got ourselves in a hole and we have got to get out of it.

"But if we carry on playing like that we will only make it deeper."

The Hornets are now ten points from safety, and look doomed to an instant return back to the Coca-Cola Championship.