Captain Ryan Nelsen had not scored in any of the four previous seasons, but his header in Sunday's 2-0 win over Fulham made him the club's third-highest scorer alongside Jason Roberts this term. And with Allardyce having to constantly shuffle his forward line in a bid to find the elusive goalscoring formula, he insists it is time for his mis-firing front men to weigh in with their share of goals. Allardyce said: "We need the midfield players and creative players to up their totals. Ryan is the third leading goalscorer at the club so we know that's not good enough. "We got to 2-0 and two centre-halves scored for us. We got the all-important clean sheet but what we have to do is up our goals tally all over the place, but particularly from our attacking players." One timely addition to Allardyce's attacking options is midfielder Steven Reid, for whom the Fulham game marked his first Premier League start since September 2008 after a bad knee injury. Allardyce believes Reid is a rare combative player in the centre of the field, and is convinced that with a carefully structured rehabilitation he can be a force once again in the top flight. Allardyce added: "Its been a long and arduous journey for Steven and hopefully we can nurture him back into the player we know. It's great to see him back and we can only see him growing from here. "We have to try to build him up slowly now. He's the type of player who is rare today, one who wins the ball and goes and tackles players. His timing is a little bit off but it will come back."
