Premiership: Reid wants to make friend a foe

Sunderland boss Peter Reid will look to turn the screw on one of his closest friends as the scrap for FA Barclaycard Premiership survival hots up.

Reid and Bolton boss Sam Allardyce go back a long way having played together in the same youth team at Wanderers and made it through to the senior ranks.

But there will be no sentiment on display at the Stadium of Light tonight when the two men go head-to-head desperate for points.

Allardyce’s need may be greater with his team sitting just one place above the drop zone after Saturday’s 1-1 draw with 18th-placed Blackburn at the Reebok Stadium, but the Black Cats are only a point better off.

‘‘It’s a game against a club that I hold in high regard,’’ said Reid. "It was my first football club.

‘‘I was an apprentice there with the manager now, Sam Allardyce, and he’s one of my biggest friends in football. We speak virtually every day.

‘‘It’s one that we’re desperate to win, but against an old pal, it’s always strange when you go into these games.

‘‘He’s looking forward to it and certainly, I am as well I’m glad it’s not a fight between us! But we’re professionals, and it’s a game that we need to win.’’

Sunderland’s predicament is the result of just one win in nine games including home defeats by Middlesbrough and Newcastle since the turn of the year, culminating in a 2-1 reverse at Tottenham on Saturday.

Reid felt his side were denied a clear penalty at White Hart Lane when loan signing Patrick Mboma clashed with Dean Richards, and admitted they could do with a slice of luck.

‘‘We need a bit of a break, a decision, a bounce of the ball,’’ he said. "But the only way you do that is by working really, really hard.

‘‘And then you’ve got to handle the football. I just thought we gave it away a couple of times too cheaply against Tottenham.

‘‘This is a big, big game and one in which you look for the big players to handle it, and that’s what we want to do.

‘‘The disappointing thing from my point of view and from our point of view is that in the last two at home, we’ve been beaten in derby games.

‘‘We didn’t play badly in them and we possibly deserved something out of them, but it’s no use feeling sorry for yourselves.

‘‘You’ve got to make things happen, and that’s what we’re planning to do against Bolton.’’

However, Reid is facing a major selection headache with six potential starters sidelined by injury.

Claudio Reyna and Joachim Bjorklund picked up hamstring problems at Spurs and have been ruled out, along with longer term absentees Emerson Thome, Gavin McCann, Julio Arca and Paul Thirlwell.

Mboma suffered a back injury in the same game and did not train yesterday but Reid is hopeful the Cameroon international will be able to make what would be his first start on Wearside.

‘‘Even though we had a lot of injuries on Saturday, we finished the game with six or seven full internationals on the pitch, so that tells it’s own story,’’ he said.

‘‘But it’s all right saying that, you’ve got to go out and do it on the football pitch.’’