QUOTED at 8-1 in a two-horse race, Wanderers know they will cause one of the biggest Premiership upsets of all time if they win at Arsenal on Saturday.

Arsene Wenger's Gunners have been invincible in a record-breaking 45 successive league games and a trip to the famous old North London ground is a daunting prospect, even for a team that has upset Liverpool and Manchester United in successive games and is playing more confidently and competently than at any time since returning to the top flight three years ago.

So Sam Allardyce is making no rash predictions and no wild claims about the quality of his team. In fact, the Wanderers boss is still sore about the way his players surrendered a winning position against United last Saturday - not only the reckless loss of two points but also the squandering of a glorious opportunity.

For while there has been much talk of the "fear factor" this week - a possible explanation for the players switching off in that fateful final minute at the Reebok and now a psychological hurdle that needs to be cleared before they can even contemplate lowering Arsenal's colours - Big Sam believes Wanderers could have established themselves as a team to be feared and not just respected.

"I believe beating Liverpool at home and beating Manchester United, which we should have done, would have given us a better chance of a result at Highbury," he said, reflecting on the 2-2 derby draw as some kind of defeat.

"We'd have been more relaxed.

"Instead there's still that fear factor, which you see in every team when they go to play Arsenal now. It might not be as bad in our case and we might still do well and create a bit of a shock, but we might have been more capable of achieving it had we won four out of our first five games and beaten Man United as well as Liverpool.

"That is what made me so angry with the players after what they did on that final corner, because it meant so much. They don't realise it but I do.

"It meant more than the two points we threw away. It meant we missed out on making a massive statement in the Premiership.

"We'd have been 50 per cent towards creating our own fear factor, to creating our own domain at the Reebok Stadium. We'd have had three home wins on the trot when we only won six at home all last season. All of a sudden teams would be coming here not expecting to get a result or at least being happy with a draw whereas in the past even teams at the bottom of the league saw Bolton Wanderers as the best chance of getting three points.

"We go to Arsenal with 10 points instead of 12 because people just didn't do what they should have done. It was unbelievable."

Allardyce just cannot forgive his players for conceding four goals from corners this season - two in the United game - when he has developed a tried and trusted formula during his decade in management. "I've changed just one slight thing in 10 years, that's all," he added. "Everybody should know his job but, for some reason, they just switched off."

Nevertheless, 10 points from the first five games is a better return than Wanderers anticipated and there is no pressure to get anything at Highbury.

In fact Allardyce is more concerned about avoiding slip-ups when the newly-promoted teams come to the Reebok in search of safety points.

" I see it as more important to guard against losing to West Brom or Norwich at home than beating Manchester United and Liverpool or getting a result at Arsenal," he added.

"I always see these game against the big boys as 'playground time'. It's like fantasy football for us.

"We're not expected to win, not expected to create a shock. We just go there to do our best, which is not always enough when you play Arsenal, but we don't worry about that.

"The games we really need to focus on are when we come up against teams in the bottom half. That's where our bread and butter is and that's where we've got to be really performing to our best.

"Games against the big three are still cup finals for us."

Going into the weekend third in the table and having further strengthened his squad with the signing of Khalilou Fadiga, things are looking up for Allardyce, despite the derby disappointment.

He has interesting selection options after resting Ricardo Gardner and Stelios against United and getting impressive performances out of their replacements, Anthony Barness and Kevin Nolan, while El-Hadji Diouf's impact as a second half substitute for Henrik Pedersen suggests the loan striker could make the starting line-up.

"There is still only Fulham who have outworked us so far and that came after we'd had players away on international duty," the manager said. "They battered us down there and that was why I left certain players out on Saturday.

"If we hadn't had the international week, I probably wouldn't have made any changes after the Liverpool game. The ones who got in only got in by default but they did so well.

"That was a great experience for me, seeing how much strength in depth we have now, but it's only what Arsene (Wenger) and Sir Alex (Ferguson) have been dealing with for years."