SAM Allardyce has two visions. In one, he sees himself planning for a third season of Premiership football, season ticket sales soaring to near-capacity levels and every inch of the Reebok's corporate entertaining areas sold out.

He sees the day when he will at last have a transfer chest to splash out on a new player or two or three and not have the stigma of being tipped as relegation favourites.

In the other he is threatened by financial meltdown, battling to maintain morale in the poverty zone that is now the Nationwide League and struggling under even tighter cash restraints than he has ever known - under pressure to sell his best players and sending his team out into a half-empty stadium.

Neither dream nor nightmare - just two perfectly feasible consequences of success or failure in the fight for Premiership survival.

Big Sam and his talented squad are playing for the highest possible stakes and at this point in time, the scales could still tip either way.

Victory at Sunderland last weekend has raised hopes of survival but, as he added his voice to the Bolton Evening News "Keep The Whites Up" campaign today,themanager

insisted there was still a lot of football to be played.

"We are still a million miles from safety," he warned with characteristic honesty. "This time last year it was all doom and gloom yet we were a point better off than we are now! So let's not start saying we're safe.

"But we can be encouraged by the fact that we are in our best form of the season and we still have lots and lots to fight for as we go into these last eight games. I just hope the fans understand - and not just the regulars - that they have a vital part to play."

Needing all the help he can get at such a crucial stage of the campaign, Allardyce wants to see the Reebok packed for the five remaining home games, starting with Monday night's showdown with Spurs and continuing with the visits of Manchester City, West Ham and Arsenal before the final fixture on May 11 when Michael Ricketts' Middlesbrough bring the curtain down.

Ever-grateful for the support of the loyalists, the manager believes the extra thousands required to fill the stadium would not only provide a much-needed spur but also a reward for the players' efforts.

"It's something the players need and which they respond to," he agreed. "But it's also what they deserve.

"It's not as if we haven't been entertaining. We might not have got the results everybody wanted but we've only lost four in total at home.

"It disappoints me when I see that there's only Fulham below us in the attendance table - and that's only because they play their games at QPR!

"We can fill the stadium and, as they did for the Blackburn, Chelsea and Manchester United games, the players have shown they can respond to the support. The fans will have gone home disappointed because we only managed to draw those game after conceding late goals but they saw the team play well.

"Actually, it would be nice to think that in all the five remaining home games we could be 1-0 up with just a couple of minutes to go because we're going to win one sooner or later!

"I'd settle for the fans filling the Reebok for the next two games and help us get a couple of wins or at least a win and a draw that would put the pressure on everybody else with only six games left. Chelsea away will be a tough one but then it's West Ham at home - the 'Big One' like last season's home game against Ipswich, which proved so crucial."

Apart from the financial consequences of failure, Allardyce sees his own personal standing at stake and suggests that professional pride will drive him on: "The finances are obviously important but I also think about losing my status as a manager in the Premiership. Being one of 20 managers in the best world in the league is your ultimate dream.

"I don't want to let that go because, the way things are going these days, you don't know whether you are ever going to get it back.

"When you see the troubles that Ipswich and Derby are having this year you don't want to find yourself in that position.

"But if we do manage to stay up we can build on what we've already done and maybe we will no longer be looked at as relegation fodder but as a club where demand for tickets outstrips the supply, where we can sell more than the 16,000 season tickets we currently have and all our corprate packages snapped up instead of just half of them."