JAY-JAY Okocha has applauded Sam Allardyce for ringing the changes over Easter, with no regard for reputations.

"We saved our season," the Wanderers captain said after Monday's 2-1 win at Wolves. "It was a great team effort and it was a great rotation by the manager."

Okocha found himself on the subs' bench alongside Youri Djorkaeff at Molineux, just 48 hours after Ivan Campo and Stelios had been given the same treatment.

It was all part of the rest and rotation policy the manager opted for in an attempt to get the points required to put paid to any lingering fears that he might get dragged into the survival scrap.

Fans scoffed that he was making too much of the so-called fatigue factor, and the players themselves did not necessarily agree that they needed to rest. "We are paid to play and we just get on with it" and "It's the same for both teams" were the general views.

Allardyce knew he was sticking his neck out. The last time he chose to rest players was a defensive disaster when he took Bruno N'Gotty and Nicky Hunt out of the back line and gave Steve Howey and Jon Otesemobor debuts in the Manchester City game, a week before the Carling Cup Final.

But he was so convinced that fatigue would play a big part over Easter that he took what he described as a "calculated gamble".

It paid off when Kevin Davies and Henrik Pedersen shared four goals as Wanderers salvaged one point from the Aston Villa game on Saturday then all three with a smash and grab raid on Molineux.

The end justified the means and Okocha had no complaints that the manager decided the Wolves game needed a sleeves-rolled, up-an'-at-'em performance which neither he nor Djorkaeff were suited to.

"Yes we had a strong bench but it did not trouble me to be on it," the skipper said. "In fact I was quite happy the way things were going, until they equalised.

"I thought I would be longer on the bench. But it was a great rotation. The manager made it clear to all of us that he was going to change a few players, and the ones who came in on Monday played very well.

"I have no reason to complain."

Kevin Nolan looked tired in the closing stages at Molineux and admitted later that he was feeling the strain. The manager, he said, had been courageous - and was proved right.

"Obviously two games in 48 hours is going to have an effect," he conceded. "We always knew he was going to swap and change players. He said earlier in the week that he was going to have two teams. But it took a lot of courage for him to drop Jay-Jay and Youri on Monday and Campo and Stelios on Saturay.

"But he had it in his mind and it came off for him so no one can slate him for it.

"You can only praise him for what he's done as a manager here, anyway."

Few in the dressing room shared Allardyce's anxieties over the League position but, as Nolan suggested, that is the manager's prerogative.

"He worries about things like that but that's why he's the gaffer," he said. "We firmly believed that, if we kept going they way we had been going - apart from Middlesbrough - we could kick on into the top 10.

"We've got a lot of good characters in the squad and we've all stuck together, no matter what, through thick and thin."

"We've had a few crisis meetings between ourselves - after the 4-0 defeat at Manchester United and then the Portsmouth defeat - and we knew the gaffer couldn't bring anyone else in, so it was all about us stepping up, believing in ourselves and going on from there."