By Mark Heys
August 21 2006

Nicolas Anelka's move to Bolton Wanderers will be completed once Turkish side Fenerbache give their seal of approval to the transfer. The 27-year old revealed that he had been in talks with the Trotters in yesterday's edition of L'Equipe and Wanderers manager Sam Allardyce has since confirmed the reports as true.

However Allardyce stated that a deal still needed to be rubber stamped and any agreement lay firmly in the hands of the selling club Fenerbache, whom Anelka has been with since January 2005.

"It's no secret that we are trying to sign him but we are in the hands of Fenerbahce until that side of the agreement gets sorted out," said Allardyce to the official website

"We are flattered that Nicolas Anelka would consider joining us as he has expressed - but that is all it is at the moment. Until his club tells us that we can get on with the deal we are really in their hands.

"The deal has been negotiated for a considerable period of time. We've given more time to this than anything else but we can't quite get the president of Fenerbahce to put the rubberstamp on it."

Allardyce is concerned that other clubs may steal in at the last minute to try and tempt Anelka elsewhere hence the reason why he wants the deal to be finalised as quickly as possible.


"Hopefully, that will be done sooner rather than later because when something like this becomes public, it concerns me quite considerably because it could alert other clubs to join in the race and spoil all the negotiations we've had. There's nothing we can do about that other than keep our fingers crossed"