SAM Allardyce says Wanderers must develop a sharper cutting edge or face a season battling at the bottom.

Just 11 goals from 11 Premiership games is a desperate statistic the Reebok boss is striving to rectify.

While Wanderers are shipping in goals - nine in the last four games - they need to counter with goals of their own.

That ultimately means more effectiveness around the box from the strikeforce and Allardyce admitted he would take any kind of goal to get number one striker Michael Ricketts off the mark from open play.

"I'm hoping the ball goes in off his knee or something just to get his goal," he said of the front man whose two goals this term have come from the penalty spot.

"We just have to hope it will turn for him and for us. It's not just Michael. Dean Holdsworth made a great chance for himself at Birmingham when he swivelled brilliantly and shot against the keeper.

"He would normally put those in and if it had it would have taken the pressure off both him and Michael Ricketts.

"We showed a lack of cutting edge at Birmingham. That has to be rectified quickly because if it isn't we will continue to find ourselves around the bottom of the table."