By Mark Heys
December 8 2005

Bolton Wanderers will be hoping to maintain their fabulous home record on Saturday afternoon as they welcome Aston Villa to the Reebok Stadium.

The Trotters are high on confidence and bang in form at the moment after comfortably defeating Arsenal the last time out so they will be hoping to put in a similar performance against a Villa side currently struggling at the wrong end of the Premiership table.

Villa have often proved to be a difficult opponent for Bolton in recent seasons with last year's corresponding fixture going the way of David O'Leary's side thanks to a last minute Thomas Hitzlsperger strike.

Abdoulaye Diagne-Faye was substituted late on in the Arsenal game after stretching awkwardly for the ball but he is expected to resume his place in the heart of the Wanderers midfield for this game.

Danish utility player Henrik Pedersen is still feeling the affects of a troublesome achillies injury so he will once again be expected to view the game from the sidelines.

Villa have slight doubts over striker Kevin Phillips (ankle) and midfielder Patrik Berger (knee) for the trip to Lancashire but Danish defender Martin Laursen is definately ruled out with a long term knee injury.

Welsh international Mark Delaney is pushing for a return to the first team fold after missing a large proportion of this season due to a catalogue of injury problems.

A win against the Villans would further strengthen Bolton's aims of attaining a Champions League place and will stand them in good stead going into one of the most difficult period's of the fixture calendar.

PREMIERSHIP RECORD

30/08/1995 ASTON VILLA 1 (Yorke) BOLTON WANDERERS 0

10/03/1996 BOLTON WANDERERS 0 ASTON VILLA 2 (Yorke 2)

04/10/1997 BOLTON WANDERERS 0 ASTON VILLA 1 (Milosevic)

25/04/1998 ASTON VILLA 1 (Taylor) BOLTON WANDERERS 3 (Cox,Taylor,Blake)

27/10/2001 ASTON VILLA 3 (Angel 2, Vassell) BOLTON WANDERERS 2 (Ricketts 2)

30/03/2002 BOLTON WANDERERS 3 (Delaney OG, Bobic, Nolan) ASTON VILLA 2 (Warhurst OG, Taylor)

01/09/2002 BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Ricketts) ASTON VILLA 0

01/01/2003 ASTON VILLA 2 (Dublin, Vassell) BOLTON WANDERERS 0

05/10/2003 ASTON VILLA 1 (Angel) BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Nolan)

10/04/2004 BOLTON WANDERERS 2 (Pedersen, Davies) ASTON VILLA 2 (Crouch, Hendrie)

13/11/2004 BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Diouf) ASTON VILLA 2 (McCann, Hitzlsperger)

23/04/2005 ASTON VILLA 1 (Hierro OG) BOLTON WANDERERS 1 (Speed)

13/08/2005 ASTON VILLA 2 (Phillips, Davis) BOLTON WANDERERS 2 (Davies, Campo)

PREMIERSHIP FORM GUIDE:

Played: 13

Won: 3

Drawn: 4

Lost: 6

CONNECTIONS

Franz Carr, Neil Cox, Sasa Curcic, Gareth Farrelly, Stuart Gray, John Gregory, Kevin Poole, Bruce Rioch, Bryan Small, Alan Thompson

IT HAPPENED WHEN BOLTON PLAYED VILLA

Kevin Phillips scored his first Villa goal earlier on this season when the two sides met at Villa Park. Bolton could have won the game but for the referee disallowing a Kevin Nolan goal for offside.

Villa where the first ever club to win a game at the Reebok Stadium when Yugoslav striker Savo Milosevic scored the only goal in an 0-1 scoreline back in October 1997.