By Mark Heys
October 19 2007

Managerless Bolton Wanderers will be facing their toughest test of the season so far when they head down to the capital to take on current Premier League leaders Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

In years gone by the Wanderers have relished the prospect of coming up against Arsene Wenger's teams but since the departure of long serving manager Sam Allardyce in the summer the club have won just one league game cultimating in another managerial departure.

Whilst Allardyce lasted over seven years in charge, his successor Sammy Lee failed to last seven months leaving Bolton second from bottom in the table and in the early relegation dogfight.

Arsenal are on a remarkable run of form and rightly sit top of the Premiership table having gone on a ten match unbeaten run having defeated Sunderland at the Emirates a couple of weeks ago.

Only Blackburn Rovers have managed to contain the Gunners this season when getting a share of the spoils in a 1-1 draw at Ewood Park at the start of the campaign.

Wanderers caretaker manager Archie Knox is in charge until the club find a replacement for Lee and his first team selection could be changed slightly from that which just lost out to Chelsea a fortnight ago.

Christian Wilhelmsson (ankle) and former Arsenal man Nicolas Anelka (thigh) picked up injuries whilst on international duty and are considered to be a doubt for the trip South.

Heidar Helguson, Blerim Dzemaili and Ricardo Vaz-Te are still long term absentees and will not make the game but the likes of Andranik Teimourian will be pushing for a role back in the first team.

Arsenal manager Wenger will be without striker Robin Van Persie after he picked up a knee injury whilst serving Holland and there is also worries over Swiss defender Philippe Senderos who has a back problem.

Better news for the Londoners is that they have Eduardo da Silva, William Gallas, Jens Lehmann and Tomas Rosicky back in contention for the Wanderers visit.

Bolton know this game will be a tough ask but then the same can be said of a particular game in October 1995 when the club wheren't expected to get anything out of a Monday night showdown with the Gunners at Burnden Park and ended up winning the game 1-0 through John McGinlay.

LAST TIME WE MET:

14/04/2007 ARSENAL 2 (Rosicky, Fabregas) BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Anelka)

BOLTON WANDERERS: Jussi Jaaskelainen, Nicky Hunt, Abdoulaye Faye, Abdoulaye Meite, Ricardo Gardner (Andranik Teimourian), Kevin Nolan (David Thompson), Ivan Campo, Gary Speed, Kevin Davies, Nicolas Anelka, El-Hadji Diouf (Ricardo Vaz-Te)

SUBS NOT USED: Stelios Giannakopoulos, Ali Al-Habsi (GK)

ARSENAL: Jens Lehmann, Emmanuel Eboue, Kolo Toure, William Gallas, Gael Clichy, Aleksander Hleb (Julio Baptista), Cesc Fabregas, Gilberto Silva, Tomas Rosicky, Freddie Ljungberg (Abou Diaby), Emmanuel Adebayor

SUBS NOT USED: Philippe Senderos, Jeremie Aliadiere, Manuel Almunia (GK)

CONNECTIONS:

Nicolas Anelka, Jack Elvey, George Hunt, Brian Kidd, David Jack, Isaiah Rankin, Bruce Rioch

DID YOU KNOW?:

Bolton's last win at Arsenal came in January 1994 when the club defeated the Gunners in an FA Cup replay. On that memorable night John McGinlay put Bolton in the lead with a header before current Sky pundit Alan Smith equalised from close range. Jason McAteer put Wanderers in front in extra time after Owen Coyle had hit the post and Andy Walker completed the rout. Tony Kelly could have made it four but the referee ordered a re-take of the free kick which he scored which in turn saw Martin Keown sent off for Arsenal.

The Wanderers last caretaker manager was current Hull City manager Phil Brown. Brown took charge in September and October 1999 after the departure of Colin Todd and prior to the arrival of Sam Allardyce and in that time the club lost just one game, a narrow 1-0 defeat at Wolves.

Nicolas Anelka has scored in each of the last two league meetings against his former club. When the two sides met in November 2006, Anelka scored his first two league goals for Bolton since making the record £8 million move from Fenerbahce.