WITH timing as precise as one of his tackles, Gudni Bergsson is ready to return to lead Wanderers in their bid for Premiership security.

The inspirational Reebok skipper, sidelined with a knee injury since limping out of the Derby defeat on March 16, has been passed fit and is all set to face his former club in a game that could erase any remaining relegation doubts.

There are many who consider them safe already but no-one in the Bolton camp is in the business of chicken counting until the mathematics say otherwise.

Nevertheless, the mood has changed for the better since Bergsson limped out of that demoralising 3-1 defeat when John Gregory's Rams appeared to have stolen a march on Wanderers in the battle to beat the dreaded drop.

Three wins out of four - the third being the 4-1 thrashing of Ipswich last time out - has transformed Sam Allardyce's survival squad from relegation "certs" into an odds-on safety bet.

Not surprisingly there is an air of confidence about the place again but the manager and his backroom team are determined to prevent self-belief giving way to complacency.

"I still maintain that 39 points is not safe," assistant manager Phil Brown insisted.

"But getting a win tomorrow will go a long way to getting that safety. Even then we wouldn't be relaxing, by any means. Our aim in our remaining four games is to get as many points as we can."

Not that Wanderers are particularly worried. On the strength of their performance at the Reebok, Ipswich will do well to win a corner in their remaining four games let alone the minimum six-points they need to make up the deficit and Brown is confident his players are focused.

"They have been magnificent in training this week," he enthused. "They've had a week to reflect on the Ipswich game, when they showed what they are capable of doing on a good day, and the way they have focused has emphasised the fact that they don't think they are over the winning line just yet."

The evergreen Bergsson, who had six seasons at Spurs when he first came to England from his native Iceland, is expected to resume his centre-back partnership with Mike Whitlow, who was stretchered off in the Derby defeat, which he concedes was the low-point of the season.

"You know yourselves when you have not played well," Whitlow says, "and that was one of those games.

"But since then it's been fantastic. The Ipswich game was unbelievable. Four-nil up ... that was something that hadn't happened since the opening day of the season at Leicester."

Paul Warhurst, who limped out of the Ipswich game with a bruised heel, has trained this week and could be back in the reckoning but Ricardo Gardner, who was also back in the dressing room by half time with a hamstring injury, is out. Stig Tofting misses his fourth consecutive game with a foot injury.