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There are football matches you look forward to, and then there are Tuesday night Championship fixtures, where optimism is generally something you leave at home with the good crockery.

Bolton go into tonight’s meeting with West Ham sitting 21st after five games, having managed one win, one draw and three defeats.




Their latest effort was a cheerful 4–0 surrender at Millwall, including three goals in the final ten minutes — presumably a tactical innovation based on saving all the disappointment until the end.

West Ham, meanwhile, arrive as the Championship's rather reluctant aristocracy. Relegated from the Premier League and widely regarded as promotion favourites, they have scored 11 goals in five games and come into this one after beating Derby 3–0.

Having drawn at Burnley (2-2) - after snatching a draw from the jaws of victory - and Watford (1-1), Nuno Espirito Santo's side are still searching for their first away league victory.

There is, however, a faint glimmer of hope for the home side. Josh Sheehan's red card against Millwall has been overturned on appeal, meaning Bolton have unexpectedly acquired a midfielder who was previously expected to be sitting in the stand contemplating the fragility of the judicial system.

The problem is that West Ham possess rather more attacking firepower than Millwall, and have already scored seven goals in their last two matches. Conversely, Bolton have conceded seven in their last two.

This is either an encouraging sign that there will be goals galore - or a remarkably polite way of saying that someone is going to have a thoroughly unpleasant evening.




For West Ham, this should be the sort of fixture promotion contenders are expected to win: away from home, against a newly-promoted side struggling to find its feet, with the opposition's confidence apparently stored somewhere considerably less accessible than the dressing room.

For Bolton, the calculation is simpler. Keep West Ham quiet, frustrate them, nick a goal, defend for your lives and hope nobody from the Premier League remembers how much better they are supposed to be.

Football, fortunately, has never been particularly interested in calculations.

Prediction: West Ham to win, probably 2–1, after Bolton briefly convince everyone that a great upset is possible before football remembers that it enjoys being cruel.

And if Bolton do win, obviously none of this happened!


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