Coyle digs in for St James´ Park battle

Bolton boss Owen Coyle knows it will not be easy beating Newcastle at St James’ Park when the two sides meet on Saturday.

Coyle’s side lie just one point ahead of Newcastle on the table in eighth position, but thumped the newly promoted side 5-1 at the Reebok Stadium earlier in the season.

But despite the easy victory in the last meeting between the two sides, Coyle is expecting a much tougher test this time around.

“I think Newcastle and Alan Pardew will have them fired up wanting to win the game, it won’t be because of what happened at the Reebok, it’ll be for their own incentive,” Coyle said.

“We can obviously take confidence from the game knowing that we played ever so well and equally Newcastle will think there is a lot of room for improvement and that they are a better team than they showed that day.”

Coyle says the fact that Newcastle can go ahead of Bolton on the table with a win will spur on the hosts and said he expects it to be a difficult task to get a good result.

“The biggest incentive for Newcastle is that they can leap-frog us and go above us in the table. For us we can widen that gap,” he said.

“We know the form they’re in and we know we’ll have to be at our maximum to get a positive result when we’re there.”

Coyle also said his players will be looking forward to the challenge of playing in front of the boisterous home fans at St James’ Park.

“I think it’s fair to say the stadium will be absolutely buzzing and we all know anyway how vocal the support are but as a footballer and as a manager they’re the stadiums you want to play in, when it’s that type of atmosphere,” Coyle said.

“It’s up to my players now to go and show and stand up and be counted, like they have all season. So it’s a game we’re really looking forward to.”