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Previous meetings between the two sides on the South coast since the Saints moved to St Mary's three years ago have all ended goalless, the last of which was a year ago and went some way into helping Wanderers secure Premiership survival. Both sides go into the game on the back of fine wins last weekend against Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City respectively so could the previous bore draws and low scoring encounters be a thing of the past in Saturday's encounter? - lets hope so
Former Saints defender Simon Charlton completed his first full 90 minutes for Bolton since the turn of the month last weekend so could once again be preferred ahead of Anthony Barness in the left back role. Florent Laville and Ricardo Gardner have returned to training following knee surgery but have yet to see any competitive action so will not be risked. Kevin Davies is expected to line up against his former club and will partner Danish striker Henrik Pedersen who has scored four goals in the last five games.
Southampton are expected to include Latvian international Marian Pahars in their starting line up after the player impressed during last weekend's win over Manchester City. The Saints will be hoping Swedish defender Michael Svensson will be fit to return following a calf injury but both Matthew Oakley and Jason Dodd will be missing for the rest of the season with knee injuries.
Both clubs have drawn their last four meetings against each other in the league whilst it took a substantial period of extra time to separate the two sides in the last two meetings of the league cup, both of which where won on home soil by Bolton. Wayne Bridge, now of Chelsea was the sole goalscorer the last time the Saints defeated Bolton 1-0 at the Reebok Stadium in September 2001 whilst on the opening day of the 1997-1998 season Nathan Blake scored the only goal in Bolton's final ever visit to The Dell to give Wanderers their last league victory over the Saints.
PLAYED FOR BOTH
JACK BRADLEY
SIMON CHARLTON
KEVIN DAVIES
STUART GRAY
TREVOR HEBBARD
DAVID LEE
SAMMY LEE
PETER REID
STUART RIPLEY
PETER SHILTON
ROD WALLACE
FRANK WORTHINGTON
BILL WRIGGLESWORTH