SAM Allardyce drew extra encouragement from grounds far and wide as he savoured Wanderers' first Premiership win in 13 games and looked forward with a measure of confidence to the battles ahead.

"It is about ourselves first and foremost," the relieved Reebok boss said after seeing Ricardo Gardner's goal secure a first home win in almost six months. "But when you've done it yourself and achieved the three points, you go rushing to the TV and see if you've got a little bit more.

"And with other people losing in and around us, that makes it even better and takes the pressure off us. We can relax a bit more and start working for Southampton, which will be an extremely difficult game, judging by the form they are in at the moment.

"But it's not unlike us to go down there and get a result." The much sought-after victory lifted Wanderers just one place in the table but defeats for Leicester, Derby, Blackburn, Ipswich, Southampton and Everton put a different complexion on the league table and raised the Reebok spirits considerably.

Asked if he could have imagined having to wait from August to February for a home win, Allardyce said: "You never know what can happen. I didn't think the run would continue as long as it did but during the run there were many victories we should have got. But that's water under the bridge now.

"Looking at this performance, it wasn't as good as at Newcastle or as good as many performances we've had in the last few weeks. But it isn't about performances any more. It's about getting wins.

"We knew the group of games that were coming up and we knew how important it was to get off to a flying start. This was a chance we knew we had to take because West Ham had one or two players out as well as having had a big game on Wednesday night in the FA Cup against Chelsea. We took full advantage and took the three points.

"It was scrappy and it wasn't pretty at times but that wasn't just down to us not playing. I think conditions to start with - the wind spoiled the game and the pitch was bobbly - and a little bit of nerves from ourselves after getting 1-0 up and West Ham putting so much pressure on us.

"We had to defend deep and had to defend well and couldn't take many risks going forward as they were committing more men going forward themselves.

"But they were always in front of us and that was important because the pace of Kanoute and Defoe meant that, if they did get in behind us, it would be difficult to catch them and they would certainly have had chances to score.

"As it was, they didn't get any clear-cut chances.

"And all the Bolton fans will be as relieved as me to wake up and see us out of the bottom three. They'll know how important the victory is."