Blackburn Rovers manager: I was too ambitious for Bolton Wanderers (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Blackburn Rovers manager: I was too ambitious for Bolton Wanderers

9:30am Saturday 21st November 2009 in

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LIFE may not have exactly turned out as Sam Allardyce had planned over the last couple of years but, as he prepares to enter Bolton as the enemy, he insists he has no regrets.

The Blackburn Rovers boss returns to the place where he made his managerial name on Sunday, fully focused on guiding his new charges up the Premier League table, with his unrivalled success still casting huge shadows over the current Reebok Stadium regime.

In his eight-year spell in charge of the Trotters, before his resignation in 2007, Allardyce earned hero status by guiding them into the Premier League, into Europe and to the brink of a Champions League place - before quitting in pursuit of fulfilling his ambitions.

The world was supposedly his oyster, but now facing similar financial challenges to the ones he battled to overcome at Bolton, after a doomed stint at Newcastle United, he still insists leaving Bolton was the right move at the time.

He said: “I ended it because I needed to. Quite frankly what ended it was they didn’t have the same ambition as I had. They didn’t want to finish fourth and I did and that was the breaking point.

“It is water under the bridge now but that was the reason. I made that decision and as time has gone by, Newcastle didn’t work then I had a fabulous 11 months off, now I am back in the Premier League where I belong. I am working at a football club I enjoy working at. Everyone does the best they can under the financial restrictions we have got.

“There sometimes becomes a breaking point and that was it.

"We were in a position we had never ever experienced before.

"As a manager you can only offer your advice to say where you can go and where you want to go.

“At that time they didn’t want to go that way. The January transfer window came and went and an opportunity like that comes for a club like Bolton only once in a long period of time.

That opportunity had arisen and I have no regrets about it.

“My ambition lay higher than theirs and it was time to move on. I made the decision I wanted to leave rather than getting sacked. I have only been sacked twice in 15 years.”

At the height of his success with Bolton, Allardyce was even in the running to be the next England boss but a short stint at St James’ Park then saw him take a rest from the game.

Now back in the thick of the Premier League action, ‘Big Sam’ is relishing the present and insists his future very much depends on Rovers’.

He said: “One never knows what will happen in the future.

"What happens to Sam Allardyce is based on how much success I can bring to Blackburn Rovers.

“In my own self belief as the years have gone by, I have always had the self belief to know I can manage anywhere in the world. Not a problem. Will I get the chances? Probably not but that is life.

“I was on the up and up back then, being close to the England job.

"The Newcastle scenario - we all know what happened there - then you have 11 months out.

"You re-evaluate your life and your time and then you understand the position you are in.

“Blackburn at the right time came along. I think we have still got ambition, we can still build for the future slowly and become a very very good team again.

"I have only been here 12 months and there have been a huge amount of changes.”

Rovers and Bolton go head to head tomorrow, both in a seemingly constant fight against relegation, with the European glory days of not so long ago a distant memory for both sets of fans.

Allardyce insists though the dream lives on for clubs restricted by finances, but warns patience is needed in the demanding world of Premier League football.

“The league has moved on though, it is all about greater financial clout,” he said.

“So Blackburn has got less and a few other clubs have started to spend more.

“Portsmouth, West Ham have had a go and we have seen the cost of that.

"I understand the business side and the budgeting and that no football club, like Bolton or Blackburn, can extend themselves to the extent that West Ham and Portsmouth have for success.

"Because it might be catastrophic later on.

“I think it is still possible to do what we did at Bolton again though over a sustained period of time.

"You should always have a long term plan because short term success means you peak too soon and what comes next is generally a disaster rather than developing slowly.”