BOLTON old boy Neil Cox is looking forward to going back to his former club and he is hoping it will be a happy return.
The Scunthorpe United boss, who played 80 times for the Whites between 1997 and 1999, comes to the University of Bolton Stadium looking to make it five successive wins for the Iron having enjoyed a 3-1 win over Harrogate Town on Saturday.
And there will be other familiar faces in the Iron ranks with Mark Howard, Jem Karacan and most recently George Taft all having played for Wanderers.
Saturday’s win was Scunthorpe’s first game since January 29 but they showed little signs of rustiness as they dispatched Harrogate to move up to 16th place in League Two.
But while they are one of the form teams in the division – having also enjoyed wins over Colchester United, Port Vale and Grimsby Town – Cox is wary of a Bolton side who he says will be challenging for promotion come May.
“We’re looking forward to the test,” said the former defender.
“They’re on a good run of form and so are we. I’m looking forward to a good challenge.
“They’ll be looking for automatic promotion and we want to keep climbing up the league.
“We’re going to concentrate on what we’re going to do and we have to keep the ball a bit better than we did on Saturday.”
Cox believes the number of familiar faces involved will add a little bit of spice to the occasion.
“We’re fresh and ready to go,” he added.
“I spent nearly three years at that football club and Mark (Howard), Jem (Karacan) and (George) Taft have all been there.
“They will all want to do well going back there.”
Bolton will be looking to complete the double over the Iron having won 1-0 at the Sands Venue Stadium back in November. But Cox says his side will be a different proposition second time around.
“We’re a better side now than we were then,”Cox told his club’s website.
“We are more organised and we’re a bit fitter. We have more belief in the side too.
“Then, we changed our formation to combat them which worked at the time, but we didn’t have enough belief in front of goal.
“Now we look like we’re going to score goals and defensively we are doing quite well at the moment, so hopefully we can continue that.”
Manny Onariase will be assessed ahead of tonight’s game after coming off against Harrogate, the defender rated 50-50 due to a sore groin. Harrison McGahey will be in the squad after a hamstring complaint.
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