SAM Allardyce is deadly serious, albeit a touch dramatic, admitting he is going into the new season with his fingers crossed.

He had hoped to have all his pieces in place by now but reckons the jigsaw is far from complete.

Adding to the problems, three of his seven summer signings have arrived dangerously late in the day.

He would have loved to have had Fernando Hierro, Julio Cesar and Tal Ben Haim on board from the start of pre-season, and Les Ferdinand spending more time working on his match fitness than in rehab recovering from a knee operation.

But, for all his doubts and frustrations, Big Sam is quietly confident that he has once again improved the quality of his squad.

All he wants now is a pacy striker to give his attack another dimension ... plus another midfield player ... oh, and another goalkeeper and one more defender would not go amiss.

But, pressed to make an assessment of his squad ahead of tomorrow's Premiership opener against Charlton Athletic, he sounded in a better mood than he was a month ago when he warned Wanderers could be in "big trouble" if his luck didn't take a turn for the better.

"I'm reasonably pleased with what we've done and what we've got in," he said, relishing the prospect of seeing Gary Speed in a Bolton shirt, nursing Michael Bridges back to his confident best and converting Radhi Jaidi into a Premiership stopper.

"The squad is developing nicely. The problem is that it didn't develop quickly enough."

But August 14 was never going to be the cut-off point. Wanderers have spent the week trying to persuade Liverpool to let them have El-Hadi Diouf and dedicated long hours attempting to clear obstacles that have frustrated their efforts to sign the Nigerian midfielder Blessing Kaku from the Israeli club Ashdod and you can guarantee Allardyce will not stop trying to add to his numbers until the transfer window closes at midnight on August 31.

Such is life for the Bolton boss.

Asked if he is jealous of Charlton boss Alan Curbishley, who was able to pay more than £5m to sign Danny Murphy from Liverpool and Francis Jeffers from Arsenal this week and has now bid £6m for Southampton striker James Beattie, he adopted an air of resignation.

"I've got past that stage now," he said. "I've been living with the same old formula for the last four or five years - in fact, ever since I started.

"There was only Blackpool where I had money to spend. I broke the club transfer record twice and spent £850,000 in two years, which was a substantial amount of money for a Second Division club.

"Since then I've just lived on what I can get and tried to make it better."

The fact that Wanderers have progressed, year on year, since Allardyce arrived is a testimony to his ability to manage on what he would describe as a shoestring, although Phil Gartside would hardly describe the budget as meagre.

Whether they can strike a compromise over the next couple of weeks - what the manager wants, and what the chairman believes the club can afford - could make all the difference in the long run.

Allardyce said: "We go into the game with our fingers crossed slightly because we have not completed the fitness work, nor integrated everybody tactically, physically or mentally.

"We haven't had the time to do the work we've needed to. That leaves us in a dangerous position for the first few games.

"Hopefully the talent and the fitness of the players can overcome it and that we have a little bit of luck to us through until we get to the top of our game. We can't be on the top of our game tomorrow."