Ahead of the fixture away at Stoke City, Gary Megson addressed the media on Tuesday morning to offer his thoughts on the short trip to the Britannia Stadium.

Having recorded their tenth league victory of the season against Newcastle at the weekend, the Wanderers boss explained that he expected a 'good, old fashioned British game' between the Trotters and the Potters.

Gary, we go to Stoke on Wednesday evening, but would you have preferred to have played this game at the weekend?
It wasn't a case of preferring to have it on the weekend. It was a case of preferring not to have a ten day break after it has been played.

Tony didn't want that, I didn't particularly want it, so we just tried to change it. We didn't hold out much, we didn't have much hope really that we could change it, but try we did. Consequently, it's fallen on deaf ears and we're playing on Wednesday.

But you're going into it with a good heart? Regardless of the perfromance, far more important were the three points at the weekend.
We always want to play as well as we possibly can and be as pleasing on the eye as possible, but we've got to win games. We're not one these football clubs - there are about seven or eight in the country - that can say 'this is the style we want to play' and then go buy two or three players to do that.

We're a football club that has to look at the squad that we've got and say 'right how do we get the results with what we've got?' That's what we do and we do it quite well.

The last couple of games where we have won, we've set off really well, put ourselves in a really good position and then we've not played well enough after, when the opposition have come back on to us.

This football team has played in a certain way for about eight years and it is engrained. We want to try and alter it a little bit, but also over those eight years it did fantastically well. It's not about how you play, it's the results that you get - that's the important thing.

The cynics might say Stoke City against Bolton Wanderers might not be a classic?
It was good game at the Reebok at the start of the season. I quite enjoyed it, and other people seemed to enjoy it. It might not be a classic in terms of tip-tap-Charlie football all over the pitch, but that's why Stoke are where they are, and that's why we are where we are.

It will be a classic in terms of support and atmosphere. 22 players giving it a right good go to try and get the three points. If you're prepared for a good old fashioned British game, it's going to be something like that.

It has always been a tough place to go to. Not only is the team up for it but so are the crowd, it's loud and very passionate which can pile the pressure on. I think they have been awarded something like five penalties at the Britannia Stadium this season.

Stoke had a great result at the weekend. 2-0 down with Aston Villa and they managed to fight back and claim a point. That will surely be a tremendous boost for them?
It will feel like a win. I think everyone in the country would have expected Villa to win before the game, and certainly to beat them at two-nil up. That can sometimes happen to football teams, your team is up, and then you don't go on and win.

From Stoke's point of view, that will be seen as a huge boost for them. The fact is that they now have a home game a few days later, against one of the teams that they will be targeting to get the three points.

Not many people before the season gave Stoke much of a chance of staying up. But they've acquitted themselves pretty well. What do you make of what Tony Pulis has done so far?
Well, I said Stoke will stay up, and I still think they will do. What Tony's done so far, probably to you and to most people, will be to view what he's done in the Premier League, but I've known him a lot longer than that.

Firstly, it's down to Mr Coates, the chairman, for giving him the job in the first place, and then letting him get on with it. He's a top class chairman, and a really decent bloke. But also, Tony knows his stuff. The fact that Stoke are where they are is down to Tony and his staff.

In terms Bolton's end to the season and the club's own league position this year, how important are these games against the likes of Stoke?
Of course they are important, but everybody's got to play everybody else twice. We spoke last week before we played Newcastle, when we had a gap between ourselves and the bottom three, that we can either view that as a cushion or we can view it as a springboard.

What I wanted us to do was not to be looking at the Blackburn result against Hull, I wanted us to be looking at the West Ham result against Manchester City. We want to be looking upwards and taking it forwards.

To be fair to the players, they responded to that brilliantly because I do put them under a great deal of pressure to succeed. There is no point pretending that the game against Newcastle was just a little stroll in the park. We tell them it's the biggest game of the season, get it won and we can get ourselves where we want to be.

Do you think that UEFA Cup qualification is a possibility now it's gone down to seventh place?
Purely and simply we'll be trying to look at getting three points against Stoke and then move on to the next one, but nobody sets any targets.

I didn't set the players any targets, not as a negative point, but a positive one. If you say we're looking for forty points and you hit that by Christmas, then you might relax and think that you've created a finishing line halfway through the season. So, we don't do that, we just want to do the very best that we can.

Don't forget that if you can't make it to the Britannia Stadium on Wednesday night, then you can listen to live uniterrupted commentary on Wanderers World for absolutely nothing. Click here to get a free 30-day trial.