By Mark Heys
December 24 2006

The Wanderers aim to secure their first double of the season as they take on Newcastle United at the Reebok Stadium on Boxing Day.

El-Hadji Diouf struck twice to earn Bolton all three points when these two sides met at the start of October and Trotters cheif Sam Allardyce will be hoping for more of the same when the Magpies make the return visit down to Lancashire next week.

The signs are good for Bolton as they have won their last four home meetings against Newcastle and will be bhouyed by the fact that they have picked up six points on the road in the recent games against Aston Villa and Manchester City.

Newcastle cruised to victory against Tottenham Hotspur at the weekend to net their fifth league victory in the last six matches so they could well prove to be tough opponents.

Kevin Davies returns from a one match suspension to take his place in the Wanderers squad but manager Sam Allardyce must decide whether to revert back to a 4-4-3 system or stick with the 4-4-2 system which served him so well against City on Saturday.

Irish international Joey O'Brien has been ruled out of action for the majority of the season and there is still no place for ex-United man Quinton Fortune but apart from that the Wanderers are at full strength.

Newcastle boss Glenn Roeder has a number of injury problems to worry about with the most notable being the long term absences of strikers Michael Owen and Shola Ameobi.

The absence of the two attacking players is somewhat softened by the fact that Nigerian front man Obafemi Martins is hitting a good run of form in front of goal at the moment.

Charles N'Zogbia, Titus Bramble, Craig Moore and Olivier Bernard are out of action until at least the New Year fixtures and there is doubts hanging over the fitness of Stephen Carr and Damien Duff.

PREMIERSHIP RECORD

21/08/1995 BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Bergsson) NEWCASTLE UNITED 3 (Ferdinand 2, Lee)

20/01/1996 NEWCASTLE UNITED 2 (Kitson, Beardsley) BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Bergsson)

01/12/1997 BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Blake) NEWCASTLE UNITED 0

17/01/1998 NEWCASTLE UNITED 2 (Barnes, Ketsbaia) BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Blake)

13/10/2001 BOLTON WANDERERS 0 NEWCASTLE UNITED 4 (Solano, Robert, Shearer, Bellamy)

02/02/2002 NEWCASTLE UNITED 3 (Shearer 2, Bellamy) BOLTON WANDERERS 2 (Gardner, Southall)

26/12/2002 BOLTON WANDERERS 4 (Okocha, Gardner, Ricketts 2) NEWCASTLE UNITED 3 (Shearer 2, Ameobi)

22/01/2003 NEWCASTLE UNITED 1 (Jenas) BOLTON WANDERERS 0

20/09/2003 NEWCASTLE UNITED 0 BOLTON WANDERERS 0

28/03/2004 BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Pedersen) NEWCASTLE UNITED 0

31/10/2004 BOLTON WANDERERS 2 (Diouf, Davies) NEWCASTLE UNITED 1 (Ambrose)

27/02/2005 NEWCASTLE UNITED 2 (Bowyer, Dyer) BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Giannakopoulos)

24/08/2005 BOLTON WANDERERS 2 (Diouf, Giannakopoulos) NEWCASTLE UNITED 0

04/03/2006 NEWCASTLE UNITED 3 (Solano, Shearer, Ameobi) BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Davies)

15/10/2006 NEWCASTLE UNITED 1 (Ameobi (Pen) BOLTON WANDERERS 2 (Diouf 2)

PREMIERSHIP FORM GUIDE:

Played: 15

Won: 6

Drawn: 1

Lost: 8

CONNECTIONS

Peter Beardsley, Franz Carr, Tony Cunningham, Wyn Davies, Robbie Elliott, Les Ferdinand, Alan Gowling, Steve Howey, Mike Jeffrey, Glenn Keeley, Neil McDonald, Ron McGarry, Scott Sellars, Gary Speed, Alan Thompson, Andy Walker, Tommy Wright

IT HAPPENED WHEN BOLTON PLAYED NEWCASTLE

It eleven years ago since Bolton faced Newcastle in their first home Premiership match. Incidentally one of the Newcastle scorers that night was Les Ferdinand who later had a short spell with Wanderers

When these two sides met in January 1998 it was Newcastle who claimed victory thanks to a last minute goal from Temuri Ketsbaia. The balding Georgian international celebrated by repeatedly kicking the advertisement hoarding

In October 2001 Jussi Jaaskelainen was sent off during this meeting and Bolton had no reserve goalkeeper so midfielder Bo Hansen had to go in goal and the Trotters lost 4-0

The 2003-04 season saw Henrik Pedersen score a bizarre goal from near the corner flag after debutant Steven Taylor had misjudged the bounce of the ball. Pedersen's cross cum shot looped over the head of Shay Given and into the net

Bolton have only lost one home game against Newcastle since returning to the top flight five years ago. The other four matches at the Reebok where all Wanderers victories.