Wanderers go into tomorrow's basement derby with Manchester City confident but not cocky after denting Arsenal's Premiership title hopes.

It will be "same again" for the team that opened up a five point lead over bottom-of-the-table Blues and the battle orders will be similar.

The only difference will be the attitude of the opposition. Arsenal came to Burnden as one of the most self-assured sides in the country while City go into the Maine Road showdown desperately looking for their first win and with their morale in tatters after their Anfield maulings.

Ten goals conceded and none scored in two games in the space of four days heightened the City crisis. But their barren run has to end some time and Wanderers are determined not to become their first victims.

"It's important for us to be on our mettle," Roy McFarland stressed to his players today. "We need to go into the game with the same attitude, same commitment and the same urgency we had the other night but it's important we forget what happened, resultwise, against Arsenal.

"That's gone now. We can't afford to get carried away with Monday's win, although that shouldn't be a problem because we've got our feet firmly on the ground."

The Arsenal win has certainly raised spirits in the Burnden camp. John McGinlay's impressively-taken goal, another solid show by centre-backs Gudni Bergsson and Chris Fairclough, the sensational performance of Keith Branagan and the encouraging debut of £1.5 million Yugoslav Sasa Curcic were aspects that have raised hopes that they can put together a successful survival bid.

But they are under no illusions. "We had to defend stubbornly against Arsenal and, maybe, Lady Luck was on our side," McFarland acknowledges. "But the team worked hard together to claim a second clean sheet in successive games and that's something we feel we can build on tomorrow. "It's given us a little bit of confidence but we can't afford to be caught cold, basking in the glory of that one win.

"We know what to expect. It's an important game because it's the next game but it has the extra ingredient of City being down there with us. It's a very important game for them and we'll have to be switched on."

City, already without left back Terry Phelan (hamstring) and Peter Beagrie (shin), have injury doubts about Garry Flitcroft, Georgi Kinkladze and Ian Brightwell.

Alan Ball, who has had to scrap plans to sign Thomas Christiansen from Barcelona, hopes all three will pass fitness checks for a game he believes will see City's fortunes turn.

"This is the game when we will get that first Premiership victory we need to lift everyone and breath fresh life into our season," says the City boss.

Wanderers (likely line-up): Branagan, McAnespie, Phillips, Curcic, Bergsson, Fairclough, Lee, Stubbs, Paatelainen, McGinlay, Thompson: Subs from Davison, Green, de Freitas, Patterson.

City (from) Immell, Brightwell, Symons, Curle, Edgehill, Summerbee, Kinkladze, Flitcroft, Lomas, Rosler, Quinn, Creaney, Brown, Kernaghan, Ingram, Margetson, Foster.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.