SAM Allardyce gave his happy Wanderers a pre-season confidence boost today, when he highlighted just two key areas where a marginal improvement can fire them into Europe.
The Reebok boss has studied the statistics, and is convinced an improvement of as little as 10 per cent on their goals-to-chances ratio and just two more clean sheets, will see Wanderers challenging the top performers in the Premiership.
He admits the lack of a natural goal scorer -- Liverpool's El-Haji Diouf is the latest in a succession of international strikers he has tried to sign -- is hampering his hopes of mounting a serious challenge.
But, just two days before Wanderers kick off a new Premiership season, he believes the players can provide the solution themselves by sharing the goals around.
"Until we get a player in like Diouf and he becomes a success on the scoring front, we are going to have to share the goals out again as we did last season," he said.
"We've got a part of our game absolutely spot on -- to the level of the Arsenals, the Chelseas, Manchester Uniteds, Newcastles and Liverpools -- we know that, because of the data we keep. But when you look at our ratio for taking chances, we are actually at the bottom of the Premiership.
"If we can maintain that level and just improve the ratio by just 10 or 15 per cent, then we're going to be scoring more goals and getting more points. It's that simple.
"We'll work on the other end too. We have to try and go two games better than last year in clean sheets.
"So we've got to be looking to up the goal ratio and get two clean sheets. We could easily be in Europe if we could improve on those two factors alone."
One player Allardyce believes he can bank on to take his share of the scoring load is midfielder Kevin Nolan, who top-scored with 12 last season -- nine in the Premiership.
"Kevin is one of the best goal scoring midfield players in the Premiership," the manager said. "But that is something that has gone largely unrecognised.
"Only Frank Lampard has a better goals ratio from midfield in the entire Premiership."
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