By Mark Heys
December 15 2006

The Wanderers are back on the road tommorow evening as they face fellow European hopefuls Aston Villa in a six pointer at Villa Park.

It has certainly been a mixed few weeks for the Trotters after the euphoria of the Arsenal and West Ham victories and the disappointment of the Chelsea and Reading defeats.

Bolton's trips down to Villa have proved to be close encounters in recent seasons with the last three meetings in the Midlands ending all square. It could well be a similar story again this season as just two points seperate both clubs in the Premiership table.

Martin O'Neill's return to English football management has seen the dawn of a new era at Aston Villa but things have faltered slightly in recent games as they are without a win in the last five games.

Bolton will be without their top goalscorer El-Hadji Diouf for this game as the Senegal international picked up his fifth booking of the season against West Ham United the last time out.

Either Stelios Giannakopoulos or Ricardo Vaz-Te could make their way up from the bench to start alongside Kevin Davies and Nicolas Anelka in a three man forward line.

Defender Tal Ben-Haim should return to the Wanderers back four after serving a one game suspension so Danish utility player Henrik Pedersen seems the likely one to drop out of the starting eleven.

Villa boss O'Neill has lost both his senior goalkeepers through injury so there could be a debut for emergency loan signing Gabor Kiraly who has arrived at the club from Crystal Palace.

Hungarian stopper Kiraly was given special dispensation to join Villa after Stuart Taylor joined his fellow knee injury victim Thomas Sorensen on the sidelines.

Martin Laursen, Luke Moore and Mark Delaney are all long term absentees for the Villans and are not expected to be match fit until well into the New Year.

PREMIERSHIP RECORD

30/08/1995 ASTON VILLA 1 (Yorke) BOLTON WANDERERS 0

10/03/1996 BOLTON WANDERERS 0 ASTON VILLA 2 (Yorke 2)

04/10/1997 BOLTON WANDERERS 0 ASTON VILLA 1 (Milosevic)

25/04/1998 ASTON VILLA 1 (Taylor) BOLTON WANDERERS 3 (Cox,Taylor,Blake)

27/10/2001 ASTON VILLA 3 (Angel 2, Vassell) BOLTON WANDERERS 2 (Ricketts 2)

30/03/2002 BOLTON WANDERERS 3 (Delaney OG, Bobic, Nolan) ASTON VILLA 2 (Warhurst OG, Taylor)

01/09/2002 BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Ricketts) ASTON VILLA 0

01/01/2003 ASTON VILLA 2 (Dublin, Vassell) BOLTON WANDERERS 0

05/10/2003 ASTON VILLA 1 (Angel) BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Nolan)

10/04/2004 BOLTON WANDERERS 2 (Pedersen, Davies) ASTON VILLA 2 (Crouch, Hendrie)

13/11/2004 BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Diouf) ASTON VILLA 2 (McCann, Hitzlsperger)

23/04/2005 ASTON VILLA 1 (Hierro OG) BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Speed)

13/08/2005 ASTON VILLA 2 (Phillips, Davis) BOLTON WANDERERS 2 (Davies, Campo)

10/12/2005 BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Diouf) ASTON VILLA 1 (Angel)

PREMIERSHIP FORM GUIDE:

Played: 14

Won: 3

Drawn: 5

Lost: 6

CONNECTIONS

Franz Carr, Neil Cox, Sasa Curcic, Gareth Farrelly, Stuart Gray, John Gregory, Kevin Poole, Bruce Rioch, Bryan Small, Alan Thompson

IT HAPPENED WHEN BOLTON PLAYED VILLA

Kevin Phillips scored his first Villa goal against Bolton last season when the two sides met at Villa Park. Bolton could have won the game but for the referee disallowing a Kevin Nolan goal for offside.

Villa where the first ever club to win a game at the Reebok Stadium when Yugoslav striker Savo Milosevic scored the only goal in an 0-1 scoreline back in October 1997.