PHIL Parkinson has warned flair pair Zach Clough and Sammy Ameobi they will be targeted for special attention at Northampton today.

Wanderers go to Sixfields in search of an eighth league victory in nine games but the catalysts behind that impressive form have not gone un-noticed in the opposition camp.

Clough and Ameobi shone in the midweek victory over Coventry City but had to work harder to find space in the second half of the game.

Parkinson reckons that could become a regular occurrence – presenting a new challenge for two of his more technically-gifted squad members.

“They are marked men,” he told The Bolton News. “Using Sammy as an example – if I was the Coventry manager at half time I’d have been asking my full-back ‘are you going to let him have the freedom of the park?’

“In the second half they were more physical and tighter to him. Sammy is a good enough player to handle that and come out through the other side.

“We do exactly the same with the opposition’s key players – we set ourselves up to stop them. We need to be ready for that at Northampton and I’ll be discussing it with the lads in the hotel before the game.”

Wanderers were uncharacteristically flat in their last game on the road, at Peterborough United, but Parkinson reckons his side know exactly where they went wrong in the 1-0 televised defeat at London Road.

“We’ll learn a lesson from that one,” he said. “We have to make sure the intensity levels are right. Northampton will have watched the first half the other night and seen some of the football we played and they’ll be setting up to stop us, I should imagine.

“Maybe there won’t be as much space on the pitch as there was for 45 minutes on Tuesday night, so we have to be intelligent enough as a team to identify that.”

Off the field, Parkinson has kept tabs on an ongoing share battle between owners Ken Anderson and Dean Holdsworth which, say club sources, is nearing a conclusion.

“I wouldn’t read too much into it, I’m confident it will be resolved,” said the Whites boss. “Like I said all along, Ken and the rest of the board are working to put down a solid structure to take the club forward in the long term.

“That’s what they said to me when I first met them in the summer and they are continuing to do that.

“Many clubs all over the country have got difficulties and we’re trying to get through ours, and I’m confident that will happen.”