Birmingham City Preview

By Mark Heys
April 3 2006

Bolton Wanderers hope to get back to winning ways tommorow evening as they face struggling Birmingham City in a rearranged game at St Andrews.

The Wanderers have lost their last two league games against Middlesbrough and Manchester United and are looking for their first win on the road since convincingly disposing of North West rivals Everton in the middle of December.

Birmingham in contrast are upbeat at the fact that they managed to hold Premiership champions Chelsea to a goalless draw just a few days ago to ease the pressure on under fire manager Steve Bruce.

St Andrews has often proved to be an unhappy hunting ground for Bolton in recent years but a late strike by Kevin Nolan in last season's encounter helped to bury a fifteen year jinx.

Jamaican wing back Ricardo Gardner should return to the starting line up for Wanderers after missing the defeat against United through illness so Henrik Pedersen is likely to drop down to the substitutes bench.

Birmingham manager Steve Bruce welcomes back on-loan midfielder Jiri Jarosik after the Czech international was ineligable for the game against his parent club Chelsea.

However, the Blues have a lot more players on the treatment table than anyone else at the moment as no fewer than eight of the first team squad are nursing troublesome injuries.

Mario Melchiot, Chris Sutton, Jamie Clapham, Alex Bruce, Muzzy Izzet, David Dunn, Matthew Upson and Medhi Nafti have all been absent from the team in recent weeks.

A win for Bolton would help to keep the pressure on their European chasing rivals whilst victory for Birmingham will see them move out of the drop zone for the first time since October.

PREMIERSHIP RECORD

02/11/2002 BIRMINGHAM CITY 3 (Purse, Savage, Horsfield) BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Okocha)

01/02/2003 BOLTON WANDERERS 4 (Cunningham (OG), Pedersen, Djorkaeff, Facey) BIRMINGHAM CITY 2 (Savage, Morrison)

25/10/2003 BOLTON WANDERERS 0 BIRMINGHAM CITY 1 (Forssell)

06/03/2004 BIRMINGHAM CITY 2 (Forssell, Hughes) BOLTON WANDERERS 0

25/09/2004 BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Jaidi) BIRMINGHAM CITY 1 (Izzet)

04/01/2005 BIRMINGHAM CITY 1 (Upson) BOLTON WANDERERS 2 (Diouf, Nolan)

PREMIERSHIP FORM GUIDE:

Played: 6

Won: 2

Drawn: 1

Lost: 3

CONNECTIONS

Simon Charlton, Tony Evans, Paul Fitzpatrick, Bob Hatton, David Holdsworth, Allan Johnston, Andy Kennedy, Jim McDonagh, Trevor Morgan, Jamie Pollock, Kevin Poole, Isaiah Rankin, John Sheridan, Bryan Small, Stuart Storer, Gordon Taylor, Neil Whatmore, Frank Worthington.

IT HAPPENED WHEN BOLTON PLAYED THE BLUES

Jay-Jay Okocha and Delroy Facey both netted their first ever goals for Bolton in the games against Birmingham during the 2002-2003 season.