Tranmere Rovers Preview

By Mark Heys
July 27 2007

Prenton Park will be the stage where Bolton Wanderers will hope to get their pre-season programme back on track when taking on Ronnie Moore's Tranmere Rovers side on Saturday afternoon.

Defeats over the last six days against Lyon and Hibernian have given Wanderers manager Sammy Lee food for thought ahead of the new season with the Bolton chief unlikely to take any more big risks going into the the game on the Wirrall.

That means the regulars will return to action with Kevin Nolan, Abdoulaye Meite, Jlloyd Samuel, Nicky Hunt, El-Hadji Diouf, Nicolas Anelka and Jussi Jaaskelainen coming back to the starting eleven.

Heidar Helguson may get some more playing time after an impressive 45 minute showing at Easter Road on his Bolton debut and there could also be places for loan signings Mikel Alonso and Christian Wilhelmsson, the latter relying on receiving international clearance following his move from FC Nantes earlier in the week.

Tranmere boss Moore is likely to hand home debuts to new signings Antony Kay, Ben Chorley and Adnan Ahmed whilst Welsh international goalkeeper Danny Coyne returns to the Birkenhead club for a second spell after eight years away.

LAST TIME WE MET

13/01;/2004 BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Shakes) TRANMERE ROVERS 2 (Dadi, Hume) (FA Cup replay)

BOLTON: Kevin Poole, Anthony Barness, Danny Livesey, Charlie Comyn-Platt, Jeff Smith, Stelios Giannakopoulos (Ricky Shakes), Per Frandsen, Ricardo Vaz-Te, Henrik Pedersen, Mario Jardel (Kevin Nolan), Delroy Facey (Cleveland Taylor)

Subs Not Used: Jason Talbot, Donovan Ricketts

ROVERS: John Achterberg, Ryan Taylor, Gareth Roberts, Graham Allen, Ian Sharps, Danny Harrison, Iain Hume (Alan Navarro), Mickey Mellon, Eugene Dadi, Gary Jones, David Beresford (Alex Hay)

Subs Not Used: Paul Linwood, Sean Connelly Russell Howarth

PLAYED FOR BOTH

Graham Bell, Vince Dillon, Malcolm Edwards, Delroy Facey, Simon Farnworth, Syd Farrimond, Ralph Gubbins, Jason McAteer, Mike McBurney, Neil McNab, John Manning, Tommy Neill, Dick Oxtoby, Martin Pike, John Platt, Graham Rowe, Barry Siddall, Graham Stanley, Dennis Stevens, Nicky Summerbee, Scott Taylor, John Thomas, Ray Train, Gavin Ward, Johnny Wheeler, Frank Worthington

DID YOU KNOW:

Former Bolton captain Warwick Rimmer is currently the Youth Development Officer at Tranmere. It is a position he has held for nigh on two decades producing the likes of Ryan Taylor, Ian Moore, Ged Brannan, Jason Koumas and others.

The Tranmere-Bolton rivalry began from the 1991 Play Off Finals when a dubious Chris Malkin goal took the Wirral club into the old Division 2 (now Championship level).

Since then the 1999-2000 season rekindled rivalries with Tranmere craftily using different means to win the League Cup semi final between the two teams.

These includes the use of towels for wiping the ball down during throw ins, the moving of advertisement hoardings to allow long throw expert Dave Challinor to take throws and mind games between the two then respective managers in John Aldridge and Sam Allardyce.

Also Tranmere denied Bolton their 100 points tally in the final game of the 1996-1997 season when Lee Jones lashed a last minute volley past Wanderers substitute keeper Gavin Ward, who spent last season with Rovers.