By Mark Heys
January 23 2006

When asked about who his most important signing has been, you would probably think that the likes of Michael Ricketts, Youri Djorkaeff, Jay-Jay Okocha or Bruno N'Gotty would roll off Sam Allardyce's tongue but the Bolton manager goes back to only last summer to reveal the guise of his best recruits. Allardyce is famous for bringing top quality names to the Reebok Stadium who maybe haven't had the best of times as well as unearthing unknown talent such as Tal Ben-Haim, Abdoulaye Diagne-Faye and Ricardo Vaz-Te.

The departures of highly rated coaches Phil Brown and Neil McDonald left the Wanderers in limbo over the summer and the previous hard work of the last five years was severly tested as Allardyce looked to bring in the right people to fill the void.

Enter Liverpool legend Sammy Lee who had been working for the Football Association. Lee took over the role of assistant manager from Brown more than thirteen years after leaving the club after a short spell at the end of his playing days.

Lee's coaching credentials speak for themselves as he climbed his way up the coaching ladder at Anfield between 1993 and 2004 and also became an important part of Sven Goran Eriksson's England coaching staff, a role which he still takes up on a part time basis.

Then in October the Reebok Stadium's doors flung open once more as Scotsman Ricky Sbragia walked away from the successful Manchester United reserve team to accept the role of First Team Coach at Bolton.

Sbragia had played for a number of clubs at lower league level but was well known to Allardyce as both spent some time on the coaching staff at Sunderland when Peter Reid was in charge on Wearside.

These recruits go down as two of Allardyce's best signings and the Bolton boss stressed that it was important to replace mssrs Brown and McDonald as quickly as possible with the right kind of coach.

"Losing them (Brown & McDonald) was a big blow, but it shows how far Bolton have come that we managed to recruit a top guy from the FA and a respected coach from Manchester United." said Allardyce to the Sunday newspapers

"Sammy was over-seeing a Pro Licence course I was completing at Warwick University last summer and I sensed that, although he was involved coaching England, he was frustrated at a lack of day-to-day involvement with players, having been at Liverpool so long.

"Sammy's a workaholic and a great lad and we are managing things well together. As for Ricky, I knew him at Sunderland but getting him out of United was a major coup."