‘That’s probably one of the biggest challenges I have ever come across in my life. How do we get the Bolton people singing?

‘So that’s a challenge I have got to do in my life. I’ll let you know when it comes out.’

McFly tickets are on sale now for the band’s upcoming UK tour, set to take place throughout March and April.

- If Liverpool could match their away form to that of at Anfield they would not be battling to get the fourth Champions League spot.

- Blackburn’s away form must be fairly shocking as they are nowhere near challenging for Europe, let alone the top four.

Liverpool’s season has been covered in great detail elsewhere, but Allardyce’s positive spin on things has been rather less scrutinised. In fact, Blackburn would be in 18th position if away form was all that mattered. Having picked up a paltry six points on their travels from Ewood Park, it would be the understatement of the century to say that much can be improved.

However, Saturday April 3rd 2010 offers a fabulous opportunity to pick up only a second away win of the season. Blackburn will take on Portsmouth at Fratton Park, and although the Hampshire side are showing a great deal of heart in their matches, even without the 9 point penalty for going into administration Portsmouth would be bottom of the league. In the reverse fixture, Blackburn completed a convincing 3-1 victory despite going behind in the 15th minute to a Jamie O’Hara goal.

Last night Portsmouth lost 5-0 at home to Chelsea. While Blackburn are not of the calibre of Carlo Ancelotti’s team, it is another low point for Pompey in a miserable season, and heads inevitably tend to drop – especially after such a drubbing. Blackburn beat notoriously difficult to break down Birmingham City 2-1, thanks to a brace from David Dunn, and this result coupled with a good value draw against Chelsea stands them in good stead for the visit to Pompey. With their last and only other away victory coming in November against the struggling Bolton Wanderers of Gary Megson (who has since been sacked), there will not be a better opportunity for Blackburn to overcome their away demons.

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These victories have all but ensured Bolton’s presence in next season’s Premier League, but equally it is the managerial changes around them that could prove critical. Portsmouth are all but relegated following their points deduction for going into administration, but Hull and Burnley have made unusual appointments in the manager’s hotseat. When Phil Brown was sacked as Hull manager, they appointed Iain Dowie, whose track record in charge of relegation candidates is questionable to say the least. At both Crystal Palace and Charlton his sides rarely proved difficult to break down, and Hull contrived to lose to bottom club Portsmouth in his first game as manager.

Burnley fought to keep Owen Coyle in charge of their team, but do not have the budget to match their Lancashire rivals. His replacement Brian Laws had a rather disastrous tenure at Sheffield Wednesday in his previous appointment, and results at Burnley have not been good. In taking the manager from another struggling team, Bolton appear to have secured their safety.

All this makes for an fascinating clash on Saturday 27th March 2010, when Manchester United head to Bolton’s Reebok stadium. If Burnley and Hull continue to make a hash of their fixtures, Bolton only have pride and a higher league position to play for, and it is down to Owen Coyle to keep the ship on course. For Manchester United, motivation rarely seems an issue, especially with notoriously hard taskmaster Sir Alex Ferguson in charge. The Red Devils are chasing both the Premier League title and UEFA Champions League, and every year seem to hit their best form at this stage of the season.

Bolton will need to start the match well, for this season when the opponents have scored first, they have only managed to salvage one point from 14 matches. With Wayne Rooney on fire, they will hope that the welcome return of Gary Cahill aids their fortunes.

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This Wednesday sees Aston Villa take on a rejuvenated Sunderland team, and both will have many points to prove. Villa are unbeaten in eight, but with five of those eight games being draws and four of those draws insipid 0-0 affairs, to label the team as in form is a tad misleading. Sunderland have had an unusual 09-10 to say the least. Having begun the season in encouraging fashion with a draw at Manchester United and victories over Liverpool and Arsenal, they looked at the very least certain to cement a mid-table position. After defeating Arsenal in November though, Sunderland went into a bizarre freefall and only achieved their next victory in March when they thrashed Bolton Wanderers 4-0. They now look safe from the relegation scrap though, with seven points between them and the bottom three, and will now be looking up the table again.

At this stage last season, fatigue caught up with Aston Villa dramatically. A rather odd statistic is that last Tuesday’s win over Wigan was their first victory in the month of March in Martin O’Neill’s entire reign at the club, and although squad depth is greater than last year, there is still a reliance on certain players – Milner, Agbonlahor and Ashley Young to name a few.

Following this match both teams have tough-looking away games; Aston Villa take on Chelsea and Sunderland go to Liverpool, which makes this game even more important. There are still a limited supply of tickets left for this tantalising clash, and Tixdaq.com has the cheapest available online!

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Had Jermain Defoe found the back of the net against Everton rather than goalkeeper Tim Howard last Sunday then a remarkable match would have ended in Spurs leapfrogging arch-rivals Arsenal into third spot in the Barclays Premier Leaguef table.

The top goalscorer in England’s top flight has been deadly this season but it was his first penalty of the season and his aberration meant Spurs had thrown away two points for the second time in the same match as they had previously held a 2-0 lead.

A peerless opening hour was all the more comforting for Tottenham fans after their inability to take advantage of a ramshackle Manchester United team earlier that week in the Carling Cup and it must have seemed as if normal service had resumed at Goodison Park until a fifteen minute period that was reminiscent of the Keystone Cops.

Now Harry Redknapp must use his much-heralded man-management skills to rouse the players from those twin disappointments and no doubt they are looking at Wolves as the perfect opponents.

The visitors’s 1-0 win over Bolton last week was their first in the league since they beat Fulham in September and a positive result was absolutely vital in light of a festive fixture list that includes visits to Anfield and Old Trafford as well as White Hart Lane.

Wolves’ lack of Premier League experience seems to be counting against them despite a plethora of spirited performances but they have also run into the likes of Chelsea and Arsenal when their more illustrious opponents have enjoyed particularly good days.

The fact that central defender Jody Craddock is the club’s top scorer has to be a concern and a mid-term injury to Andy Keogh will further hinder their potency in front of goal.

Tottenham should motor to all three points assuming that they use their quick passing and pacy wingers to their full advantage but if there are any niggling doubts in the backs of the players’ minds, the visitors may feel they can escape north London with a point.

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Mark Hughes must feel like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders following the midweek Carling Cup win over Arsenal, even if Arsene Wenger did field a weakened side.

The timing was also perfect considering Manchester City now host leaders Chelsea, who appear unstoppable right now despite their shock slip-up at Blackburn in midweek.

Despite dropping points on a worryingly consistent basis, City have not lost too much ground on those immediately above them.

While winning the title itself appears unlikely now, a win over Carlo Ancelotti’s men could see City return to the top four should other results go in their favour.

The incentive is there and this should provide Hughes with ample evidence of where his side stand when it comes to being compared against the very best.

Hughes said: “We get judged by the amount of money we have spent but you just have to look back at where we were this time 12 months ago and the fact we were flirting with relegation.

“We have invested wisely and we are progressing. We are two points off where I thought we would be at this stage, so I’m pleased.

“We’ve got to keep that focus and intensity, but we are not a million miles away from where we should be. But Chelsea are the team to beat, without a shadow of a doubt. They are rock solid defensively and always have a real goalscoring threat.

City need to wise up to the fact Chelsea will be smarting from being knocked out of the Carling Cup. Hughes could do worse than adopt a containing policy to start with and look to utilise the quicksilver pace of Craig Bellamy and Shaun Wright-Phillips to hit Chelsea on the break. The form of this pair, along with Stephen Ireland’s ability to break from midfield, will go a long way towards deciding City’s fate.

Martin Petrov is still out with a knee problem, while Gareth Barry is also a doubt after suffering a recurrence of a nagging knee problem.

A clean sweep of trophies was never really on for Chelsea but the midweek Carling Cup quarter final defeat to Blackburn Rovers will continue to rankle as an opportunity missed for some time and Carlo Ancelotti will be looking for an appropriate response from his team to that failure.

Ancelotti insisted after the game that his priority this week had always been the visit to Eastlands after Chelsea had put down such an impressive marker in the title race with last weekend’s emphatic 3-0 victory at Arsenal.

“No defeat is good,” said the manager. “But the priority of that game was to give minutes to the players who didn’t play against Arsenal. Also it was chance for our other players to recover so tomorrow we have a fresh team.”

“Manchester City are dangerous and have plenty of quality. They haven’t won the last seven and they will want to beat Chelsea. I think they are good enough to reach the top four because they have a good squad.”

Ancelotti rested Petr Cech, John Terry and Frank Lampard at Blackburn while Didier Drogba started on the bench. The plan to field an under-strength side might have worked if the Italian hadn’t used all three of his substitutions at half time.

The coach is unlikely to be so cavalier this weekend and all his big names will start as Chelsea attempt to claim their ninth successive victory against City.

Ashley Cole returns after a hamstring injury but Kalou faces a three-week absence after tearing a thigh muscle and joins Alex (hip) Jose Bosingwa (knee) and Daniel Sturridge (knee) on the sidelines.

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Fulham are beginning to carve out a reputation for themselves at Craven Cottage, where their victory over Liverpool was followed by a comfortable three-point haul against Blackburn on Wednesday night.

The result moved Roy Hodgson’s side up to 10th in the Premier League and they are on course for another top-half finish. No wonder then that the club’s board of directors are so keen to offer him a new contract.

Hodgson told a news conference: “I spoke to the chairman and it’s not been a difficult discussion. It seems everyone is keen for me to stay and I’ve always made it perfectly clear I’m happy to stay here.

“I’ve never made any secret of the fact I’m enjoying my time here. It’s just a question now of putting the contract discussions onto paper. The club’s lawyers are looking at it and I’ll get someone to look at it from my side.”

The win over Blackburn was a perfect example of Fulham’s strength – soaking up the pressure and then hitting teams on the counter attack. Erik Nevland’s goal in the 44th minute proved to be a sucker-punch for the visitors.

The Norwegian is likely to start again here and his intelligent forward play – along with the impressive Clint Dempsey – provides Fulham with the ability to unlock defences. Brede Hangeland and Aaron Hughes should be experienced enough to cope with Bolton’s Kevin Davies, yet fellow defender Paul Konchesky will hope for a better performance this weekend.

Bobby Zamora limped off during Wednesday’s win and is a doubt. Fellow striker Andy Johnson has recovered from a groin strain and could feature after playing for the reserves, although he is likely to be handed a place on the bench. Midfielder and captain Danny Murphy is also back in contention following his knee problem and could replace Jonathan Greening. USA international Dempsey is expected to keep his place in the starting line-up after his two goals in midweek.

As for the visitors, Gary Megson’s side dropped into the relegation zone last weekend and the Bolton manager knows that an extension of the run that has seen them lose four straight games while conceding 15 goals could see them cut adrift even at this early stage.

After doing some solid transfer business in the summer, Megson was entitled to expect better than this and the recent slump has opened old wounds in his uneasy relationship with the supporters.

But the manager has reiterated that he is not worried about the taunts of his own supporters. “I’ve been dealing with this for two years,” he said. “I’ve been getting sacked every morning, I haven’t known what I was doing since I’ve been here. I’ve kept his club up twice and we’re one of the lowest spenders in the division.”

Tightening up at the back is a must and, although a win would be ideal, a first Premier League clean sheet of the season would be a major boost for confidence. Megson will also want to see a little more graft from his team, who he claims have not matched their usual high energy levels in recent weeks. After starting with two strikers in the 2-0 defeat against Blackburn, Johan Elmander may have to make way for another midfielder, with Kevin Davies on his own up front

Megson is hoping that Tamir Cohen and Ricardo Gardner overcome injuries to feature at Craven Cottage. Joey O’Brien is out long-term and Sean Davis looks likely to miss the rest of the season with a knee injury.

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