Alan Pardew believes that tonight's match will follow suit from the exciting encounters earlier this season.

Saints and Bristol Rovers have had 3-2 wins apiece in league and cup competition in this campaign, so the manager is cautious of a tricky looking fixture at the Memorial Stadium.

"I thought both games were tight," he stated. "I thought they were fortunate to win at our place and that we were fortunate to take as big a lead as we did at their place where we had a scare at the end.

"It's a difficult place to go, they have had a very good season in a really tough league, they have some good players and both teams know that if it's a draw we will both walk off disappointed. Mentally the managers will have both teams battling right to the end of 93 or 94 minutes, it's going to make for a real spectacle and I hope that our fans turn out in force because I think we will need some help."

A win in any form is all that matters to the gaffer, who had his nerves tested with another narrow success against Charlton at the weekend.

"I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get the second goal on Saturday because there were opportunities for us on the break. They were coming onto us and we really should have got a second goal, but we didn't and then you get a nervy last ten minutes. We had a couple of corners that flashed across and the goalie in our box which doesn't make it easy on your heart, but we saw it out, we have a good defensive record and that saw us home.

"I just want to think about winning every game. I think that will be enough, it might not be but then it will be out of our hands.

"We can only improve our destiny by winning our games in my view so we go to this one where it will more or less decide who will be the challengers to Colchester and Huddersfield and Charlton may also be in there as they have some tough games.

"We want to be the challengers, we have never gone away we are almost like the mummies in those old movies, we will keep plodding along and there is no getting away from us, maybe we will catch them in the end."

With a near full strength squad to choose from, Pardew says he has a lot of decisions still to make about how he approaches the game.

"I looked at the bench on Saturday and I had David Connolly who is back to full fitness now I think, Lee Barnard and Papa Waigo. They were nice options to have, I might have changed it differently had we needed a goal, but Lee's energy and the chance that he might get a second for us gave him the nod over the other two, but it was very close.

Who will get the nod? The manager has a full collect of strikers to choose from

"Now I have the decision to make whether I want to start with two natural goalscorers in the team, and perhaps lose a bit of creative ability in the team, and that's something I have to answer before we go into the game. Similarly, at sixty minutes it gives me the opportunity to exploit the weakness that I see on the day, and that's not always the weakness that is picked up on by scouts. For example, we might feel that a particular player is weak before the start of the game, and then he ends up having a great game, so we need to exploit someone else who isn't having a great game.

"We've got the ability to be able to do that, so I have the ability to make a move if we are not winning."