Pardew warns Newcastle to be fully focused on Bolton challenge

ALAN Pardew has warned his Newcastle players they must take today’s home match with Bolton as seriously as Friday’s trip to Swansea if they are to stay on course to gatecrash the Barclays Premier League top four.

Good Friday saw Pardew’s men win 2-0 at the Liberty Stadium and they will be expected to follow that up with another three points on Easter Monday against a Bolton side who have lost ten times on the road this season.

But Pardew is wary of opponents that have recorded a hat-trick of league wins before yesterday’s 3-0 home defeat to Fulham.

“They are a serious threat,” Pardew said. “Owen Coyle has just won Manager of the Month and rightly so. It will be a tough game.”

Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp insists he sees no reason to panic despite Saturday’s goalless draw at Sunderland extending his side’s poor Barclays Premier League run to one win in seven.

Redknapp’s men face Norwich at White Hart Lane today at the start of a six-match run-in which he believes will secure UEFA Champions League qualification.

After Norwich, all five of Tottenham’s remaining opponents are entrenched at the wrong end of the Premier League table and Redknapp hopes that could prove crucial.

Redknapp said: “We’ve got six games and an FA Cup semi-final to look forward to. We haven’t got to play any of the top six now, and we’ve got some decent home games.”

Chelsea will reassess John Terry, Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole and Ramires ahead of today’s west London derby at Fulham.

Interim manager Roberto Di Matteo will assess how his other players reacted to the first of two games in just over 48 hours.

Saturday’s point at Anfield ended a run of two defeats for Aston Villa and eased some of the worries about the club being sucked into a late relegation battle.

They have little time to recover as they host Stoke at Villa Park today but McLeish believes the performance they put in will carry them through.

“Every one of them is ready to go again,” said the Scot.

Everton manager David Moyes says Nikica Jelavic reminds him of Croatia’s all-time record goal scorer Davor Suker.

The Croatian has scored five goals for the Toffees since he swapped Rangers for Everton in February, the latest two coming in Saturday’s 2-2 draw against Norwich at Carrow Road.

Moyes admits he sees shades of France ‘98 top scorer Suker in the former Rangers striker.

“He does remind me of Suker,” Moyes said. “He sees getting goals as part of his job, but he has helped link us up as well.”

For today’s game against Sunderland at Goodison Park, Marouane Fellaini is likely to be recalled alongside Darron Gibson in midfield