With Blackburn in pole position for automatic promotion, Wanderers boss Sam Allardyce admits today the play offs are looming.

But even then, says Big Sam, there's no way of knowing what will happen. SAM Allardyce added weight to the 'lottery' theory today when he admitted: "I can't give any indication of how the play-offs would go, if that's what's in store for us."

The Wanderers' boss, who is crossing his fingers and hoping Blackburn slip up, has not completely given up on an automatic promotion place.

He aims to keep the pressure on Graeme Souness right up to next Sunday's final round of fixtures - certainly beyond this weekend - but he is enough of a realist to accept that the play-offs are now a distinct possibility.

And he's making no attempt to predict the outcome.

"You just don't know who is going to affect the result," he explains. "You can't say what is going to happen.

"There's such a unique pressure, a unique atmosphere in the play-offs and I wouldn't say it's a nice atmosphere or a pleasant one.

Unique

"It's like nothing else I've experienced in football because of what it results in and how long it's taken to get there.

"The whole process of the play-offs is unique in football.

"Sometimes your fate's not in your own hands. It's about you on the day having the nerve and the bottle but it could be the referee, it could be a mistake by one of your players or something bizarre happening to the opposition. "If it goes your way, you end up going up, if it doesn't you just stay where you are ...!"

Crashing out so dramatically and controversially at Ipswich in the semi-finals last season is still a painful memory for Wanderers and Allardyce admits to often wondering 'What might have been?' when he sees George Burley's men riding high in the Premiership and securing a place in Europe.

But, he accepts, beating Ipswich would have guaranteed nothing.

"We would have had to beat Barnsley in the final and, having finished above us in the league, I'm sure they'd have thought they would have had a better chance of beating us at Wembley than Ipswich.

"Harry Bassett might now still be managing Barnsley in the Premiership instead of being out of work.

"They are the consequences of crucial decisions in crucial games ... and I don't think referees actually appreciate that."

The play-off disappointment and two semi-final defeats in the major cup competitions last season had Wanderers tagged as Nearly Men - a label Allardyce is anxious to shed by clinching promotion to the Premiership, one way or the other.

Experience has taught him the value of the philosophy 'If at first you don't succeed ... try, try and try again!'

"I was in the 'Nearly Man' syndrome when I was here as a player," he recalls of his Burnden Park days when he was a member of the Ian Greaves teams that narrowly missed out on promotion to the top flight in successive seasons - 1975-76 and 1976-77.

The following season they went up as Champions!