Roy Keane and Sam Allardyce will be entrenched in opposition at the Stadium of Light on Saturday, but there was a time when the pair might have been colleagues. Allardyce did his utmost to sign the Irishman when he left Manchester United in 2005, a transfer which, had it been completed, would have represented the greatest coup in the history of Bolton Wanderers.

As it was, Keane joined Celtic, his boyhood favourites, beginning a journey which culminates in his and Allardyce's tussle as the managers of Sunderland and Newcastle United respectively. “I spoke to Sam about Bolton when I left United, but I went down a different road,” Keane said. “I was respectful, open-minded and I was impressed with what Sam had to say, but Celtic was a better option.”

Allardyce quickly realised that his hope was forlorn. “Roy had a burning desire to play for Celtic, so as hard as I tried – and I had a fantastic conversation with him – I couldn’t persuade him to join us. He would have been a great leader on the field for us and I felt I could give him the platform to carry on enjoying his football and being successful, because we were a pretty good team at that point.

“He would have enhanced the team and made us better, but it was not to be. I’ve had the chance to sign some great players from abroad, like Youri Djorkaeff, Ivan Campo, Fernando Hierro and Nicolas Anelka, but to have got Roy at that time would have been one of the biggest ever signings for Bolton. But his plan was always to play for Celtic and then to manage.”

Keane has not sought out Allardyce for advice since his move to the dug-out and while he respects his rival’s achievements, he expects their confrontation to feature a contrast in playing styles. “Newcastle will put us under pressure,” he said. “They won't be playing too much pretty stuff, particularly in their own half. We will need leaders and warriors to step up to the plate.

“[Allardyce] had an element of success at Bolton playing that way and that’s the way he’ll go at Newcastle. He plays percentage football, playing in your half and making it hard for you. Each to their own. I have been brought up a certain way – the managers I played for had certain principles on the way the game should be played and that’s rubbed off on me – but it got him success.” Mind games, perhaps?

Elsewhere, two strikers will embrace the fray with points to prove. Michael Owen has endured a barren sequence of five matches for club and country – which, for him, represents an eternity – while Michael Chopra plays for Sunderland against his hometown club. A Geordie, Chopra made 21 league appearances for Newcastle – scoring at the Stadium of Light - before joining Cardiff City last year.

He subsequently agreed a £5 million move to Roy Keane’s team, a decision which took bravery. “I want to score in every game and Saturday will be no different,” he said. “I know exactly what this game means to the fans, I’m a North East lad born and bred and I understand the rivalry.

“It’s going to be great to play in front of a sell-out crowd. Local derby games are incredibly passionate both on and off the pitch, you can feel the atmosphere from the minute you come out. It’s really special. Hopefully I'll be one of the lucky few to play for both teams. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of banter between the fans.

“Sunderland fans already sing ‘Chopra’s one of us’, which is nice. When you come to a new club you always hope the fans will accept you and when you hear them singing your name it really means a lot. It tells me they’ve noticed how much effort I’ve been putting into every game I’ve played.”

His reaction will not be demure, if he finds the score-sheet. “I always celebrate goals,” the 23-year-old said. “I celebrated at Newcastle, at Watford, at Barnsley (both on-loan), at Cardiff and now for Sunderland. The fans here saw just how much scoring goals mean to me against Spurs. I’m a striker so it’s my job to score goals and Saturday will be no different. If I get a chance, I’ll be doing everything I can to put the ball in the back of the net like I do every game.”

Owen, naturally, will follow suit. The England striker has suffered during Newcastle’s slump in form, but he shuns talk of crisis. “I never doubt my own ability and I’m always confident that if chances come along I will score,” he said. “When you’re scoring goals the target seems huge and likewise when you’re not the target seems tiny.

“I’ve scored goals all my life and usually when I get one I set off on a nice little run. Hopefully that will happen [at Sunderland] and it would be a great game to get a goal in.

“If we continue to get some poor results away from home then I would say it’s a big matter of concern. But it’s only been four or five games so far, so I don’t think it’s panic stations yet, but we’d like to pick up more results on the road.

"We’ve played some games where we’ve been disappointed not to get a point away from home against some struggling teams. And against some of the teams we’ve drawn against we’ve let a lead slip, such as Middlesbrough away, when we thought we should have won. Everyone is going to have their hard-luck stories but we’d like a few more points in the bag."

“Let’s put in into context. We’ve won away, we’ve drawn away and lost a couple. If we continued losing away from home we could talk about it but it’s not really a matter of panic just yet.”