Steve Wigley has called on Saints fans to become his side's 12th man against Bolton Wanderers at St Mary's tonight.

Head coach Wigley takes charge of his first game since replacing Paul Sturrock in the knowledge that the anti-Rupert Lowe brigade will be out in force and sure to make their feelings known.

But he wants them to concentrate on roaring the club to a second win in three games following Saturday's dramatic 3-2 win against Blackburn Rovers when a crowd of 27,492, the club's lowest in two years, watched Sturrock's last game in charge.

Wigley, who had a two-game spell as Saints caretaker manager six months ago, said: "I've been here before which gives me a little more experience than I had then.

"How much that will help on Wednesday night I don't know but what I do know is that if we get on the front foot and start well the crowd will get behind the team. If they do that we'll be fine - they were like a 12th man on Saturday

"But I accept people will have their reservations about what's happened so we've got to play a high tempo game and bring the crowd into the game."

Bolton trained in Liphook yesterday and arrived at St Mary's on the back of a 2-0 defeat against Fulham at Craven Cottage on Saturday.

But they won their opening game 4-1 against Charlton - and goals from Kevin Nolan and former Saint Kevin Davies gave Sam Allardyce's side a 2-1 win at St Mary's just four months ago.

Wigley added: " I've got the respect of the players but what I've got to do is make sure that respect is transferred into results on the football pitch.

"My job is to get the club moving forward and a positive result against Bolton would be a terrific start. We started preparation on Monday morning and we've got to make sure we're ready for this game as a club. We got a fortunate late penalty which meant we got something out of the Blackburn game but if we give goals away like we did on Saturday it will spoil things straight away.

"We've got to get back to being a bit tighter at the back because Bolton are a very good side and traditionally we haven't done very well against them.

"I've seen the video of their win against Charlton and they will be smarting because they weren't on the right end of the result at Fulham."