SAM Allardyce believes Wanderers are just a whisker away from achieving success beyond the wildest dreams of their starry-eyed supporters.

What the Reebok boss describes as "the most technically talented" team in the club's history is already on course for a top half Premiership finish, and a place in the final of the Carling Cup.

Allardyce is convinced they have the quality to make this the most successful season since Nat Lofthouse lifted the FA Cup in 1958.

"These lads can achieve an awful lot, if they want to," he said. "More than the Bolton public can ever have expected."

Back-to-back victories over Blackburn and Portsmouth have eased the pressure on the Premiership front, allowing Wanderers to focus fully on the cup, and Allardyce, who has never featured in a knockout final either as a player or a manager, is excited at the prospect of leading his team out at the Millennium Stadium.

In a sideswipe at critics who have slated him over saying he was "glad" Wanderers were knocked out of the FA Cup, he added: "If you think only from the football point of view and not the financial viewpoint, it's great to get into a major cup final like this.

"If you put a £10 million prize up for winning the Carling Cup, every manager would put out his strongest team. But the reality is that we'd probably gross about £3 million, maybe £2.5 million if we won it.

"Anybody daft enough to think I don't want to reach a final shouldn't be writing about football. The nearest I got as a player was in this competition for this club against Everton in 1977 and then as a manager in the FA Cup and Worthington Cup semi-finals in 2000 but I've had to sacrifice my personal ambitions for the good of the club, because staying in the Premiership is the priority.

"Winning the cup final is our shortest route to Europe and would look great on our CV."

There could be spin-offs too. Wanderers have 14 players out of contract this summer and a league and cup "double" would strengthen Allardyce's negotiating hand.

"Win an cup final and get to, say, eighth in the league rather than having another survival scrap and we'd have no trouble sorting the lot of them out."