SAM Allardyce today spoke of his fear for the future of Bolton Wanderers if they fail to go up this season.

The Reebok boss believes the club is destined to go backwards unless promotion is achieved or significant investment is ploughed in for new players next season.

Allardyce, whose side must win at Wolves tonight if they are to avoid the dreaded play-off, reckons Wanderers' plight will mirror that which the Molyneux club has suffered for many years unless there is immediate success on the pitch or cash made available to give him a chance of achieving Premiership status next season.

It is widely accepted that Allardyce has done a tremendous job in keeping Wanderers in the same position as they were last season despite having had to sell a number of their best players and replacing them with bargain signing and youngsters.

But he says such over-achievement can only go on so long, explaining: "If we don't make it this time and we don't invest we will end up like Wolves eventually.

"You can only keep up what we are doing for a short period of time and not forever.

"Wolves are a big club and have fantastic facilities - not as good as we have mind you - but they have not made sufficient investment in players for a long time.

"If we don't go up this season and investment isn't made then we will go like Wolves or like Barnsley who were going for promotion last year but this year have been fighting against relegation until a few weeks ago."

He added: "It would be fantastic if we did go up because this club's financial foundation would be sorted out much more quickly."

Allardyce also believes it will take Premiership football to get the fans back in respectable numbers.

"We have a fantastic stadium. It's not the biggest but it's the best and the atmosphere will come if we get more people inside," he said.

"If not we will struggle with the atmosphere.

"Our average gate should be a lot higher for a team which has been in the top two or three since December and never been out of the top six all season and it frightens me what our average gate would have been if we had not had the £5 promotion against Grimsby and the Bring A Friend promotion against Norwich.

"It's not right for this town and it seems we have spoilt the people of Bolton.

"It's only the Premiership that brings them out. When they don't come when we are at the top of the First Division it shows that the Premiership is the only thing they want to watch."