KEVIN Davies is working overtime to get the go-ahead to lead Sam Allardyce's shock troops at Old Trafford.

The combative striker, who has missed six games, has already missed one comeback target and has made it clear he has no intention of missing the showdown with Manchester United a week on Saturday if he can help it.

Allardyce, desperately in need of a confidence boost after seeing Wanderers suffer successive Premiership defeats, is determined to make it happen.

"I envisage him being fit for selection at Manchester United," the manager said.

"But between now and then we have to try to fit some football in for him - a behind-closed-doors game if needs be - to get him a little bit of match practice.

"It won't be enough to get him back to his normal self, but he is training hard enough to keep himself as fit as he possibly can.

"To have him back and available will be very important."

Initial examinations showed that Davies had escaped with just heavy bruising when he picked up the injury in the first half of the FA Cup tie at Arsenal in January but a later scan revealed he had damaged a metatarsal.

He had hoped to be fit to face his former club, Blackburn Rovers, at the weekend but has now had to switch his sights to the Old Trafford derby.

Wanderers have lost three games - including the Arsenal replay - and drawn one of the six Davies has missed and Allardyce is counting the cost.

"In some games we have missed him terribly, in others games we haven't," the manager said.

Wanderers have certainly not posed the same physical threat during Davies' absence and the lack of an aerial dimension that has helped make them such a formidable and feared force has made them much less of an attacking threat.

Nicolas Anelka, who took time to settle when he first arrived from Fenerbahce, has adapted to the Wanderers style and highlights where he and El-Hadji Diouf have missed the attacking warhorse.

"The players we have in the team are good enough to pl;ay well when Kevin is not there," said the France striker, "but of course we miss him.

"When you have a player like that, he can deflect the ball and take every ball in the air. Dioufy and me play behind him, get the ball and start to play from there."