SAM Allardyce will be suffering from double vision when he takes his Newcastle side to Bolton this afternoon, because both teams will have been assembled to his own personal blueprint.

Allardyce spent eight successful seasons at the Reebok Stadium, putting together a side that successfully established themselves in the top half of the Premier League table.

Playing a well-rehearsed brand of physical, high-energy football, the Trotters became inseparable from the manager who had encouraged them to adopt their unique playing style.

So when he runs into his former employers for the first time since he moved to St James' Park later today, Allardyce admits it will be something of an unsettling experience.

"In a way it'll be like watching two teams play against each other, both of which are mine," said the Magpies manager, who guided Bolton to a seventh-placed finish before leaving Lancashire in the latter stages of last season.

"There are players I've inherited here at Newcastle but they are my team now and my responsibility, and there are new players we've brought in. But all the Bolton players were mine as well, so it's a unique situation where you're playing your first game of the season and really think both sides are yours."

For the moment, though, Allardyce's Newcastle side remains a work in progress. Seven new signings have arrived on Tyneside this summer, but the Magpies boss hopes to bring in at least two more before the transfer window closes at the end of the month.

More importantly, he also wants to persuade the players he inherited to buy into the mindset and methods that proved so successful at the Reebok Stadium.

An off-the-pitch overhaul has been warmly received, but it will inevitably take time for Allardyce's tactical preferences to feed through to the rest of the squad.

At Bolton, the 52-year-old felt confident enough to unquestioningly trust the players beneath him. At Newcastle, though, he admits that his squad's response to his urgings remains something of an unknown.

"I don't trust these players yet. How could I," explained Allardyce, who is expected to receive a warm welcome from the home fans when he takes his place in the stand for the first half of today's game.

"I've only been here since July 2 and we haven't played a competitive Premiership game yet.

"We've done very well over pre-season and the lads are going along the right lines, but I don't know if I can trust them yet because I haven't seen them in Premiership action.

"I don't know how long it'll take - it depends on them, how much they listen and how much they learn in the next few weeks or months.

"It's about trusting them to do the job they're paid to do on a regular, consistent basis, to play within a structure and to play to their best in that structure, to play as a team and to know their responsibilities. That's a long process.

"You can't give them too much information, you have to do it slowly. After two or three points you have to stop, because they won't remember the others you began with. The important thing is to go over some key points every day."

Those key points ahead of today's game are likely to have included a means of countering Bolton's physicality and aggression.

Newcastle have not won at the Reebok Stadium since October 2001 and, last season, the Trotters claimed a notable double over the Magpies.

Allardyce's successor, Sammy Lee, has set about rebuilding the team he inherited, with the likes of Jlloyd Samuel and Heidar Helguson coming in to replace Tal Ben Haim and Henrik Pedersen, both of whom left the club this summer.

Yet Allardyce expects his former employers' approach to be broadly the same. Some of the faces might have changed this season, but Bolton's all-action style is almost certain to remain unchanged.

"Bolton may have changed their system but I'm not so sure they've changed their style," said the Newcastle boss.

"You've got so many strengths to play to that, if you don't play to those strengths you aren't playing to the strength of the team.

"I think they'll carry on in a very similar way to how I played because that suits the players who are there.

"If they are all guns blazing, then they're a difficult side to cope with.

"That's why they've done so well in the league over the past few years.

"We have to compete with that element of Bolton's strengths, which is something I know all about, and I'll be telling the lads how to do that.

"We'll be aiming to nullify those strengths, but we'll also be hoping to exploit Bolton's weaknesses. I'm aware of them as well, and hopefully we can make the most of that."