HE may have joined in the nationwide Premier League guessing games in the last few weeks but Sam Allardyce knows the relegation run-in is bound to take twists and turns that no-one has predicted.

Pundits, fans, managers and players alike have all tried to look into the future ahead of a tense last eight games of the season, Allardyce included, even though the Rovers boss accepts the exercise is ultimately pointless.

Alan Shearer’s shock return to Newcastle as an emergency boss has only led to more suggestions, predictions and theories, but Allardyce admits if common sense applied to football we would all be millionaires.

After Blackburn Rovers’ lunchtime clash with Tottenham today, all of their relegation rivals will be in action soon after and Allardyce knows all he can really do is wait and hope.

He said: “I think everyone looks at the other teams. Anybody who is involved in this, whether the fans, the manager, the chairman or the players. You will all have a look at the variants of probability.

“But the thing is you never really know. That is why we can’t win the pools. If I knew that, I would win the pools every week. I would be a very, very wealthy man and instead of being a manager I would have enough wealth to buy one.

“You don’t know what is going to happen. When the nerve ends start jangling, it gets a little bit like the start of the season when very unusual results occur.

“Nobody expected Fulham to beat United, everyone was saying they won the title already. All of a sudden Liverpool are right there.”

Shearer is already being heralded as the Toon Army’s saviour ahead of his first game in charge at home to Chelsea this afternoon, despite taking the helm at a club two points adrift of safety.

Allardyce though knows all about the pressures of being in charge at St James’ Park, after his short managerial spell up there, and warns even the presence of ‘King Alan’ does not guarantee safety.

He said: “Shearer’s appointment is bound to help Newcastle. Had Joe Kinnear not been taken ill, I don’t think this would have been the case but this illness means they have not had any managerial leadership for a period of time.

“Who better than to try and lift the players than Alan? He has legendary status up there, not so much from a managerial point of view, but as a figure head who can inspire the players to do better.

“That will come from him and from the fans. Depending on how that effects the players will be the determining factor on whether that improves results or not. I can clearly see why it has been done.

“A lot will depend on the first game though. I know it is a difficult game but it is not beyond any Newcastle team to win on their own patch. If it is against Chelsea, you will see it grow from there.”

For the moment though, Allardyce’s focus will solely be on Ewood Park as Rovers look to boost their own survival hopes with a win over Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham this afternoon.

“You just have to wait and see,” he said. “You saw Fulham slipping down the table then all of a sudden they won at Bolton away and Manchester United at home and no one expected that.

“Whoever is in and around the bottom, the nine of us, know there will be many, many changes over the last eight games. But at the end of the day as long as we have got three points then that is three points towards the total we need to get.

“We can then run to the TVs and have a look at the others knowing we have got three points and not running at the TV hoping they have lost.”