After a point from the first two games, Bolton travel to the West Midlands on Tuesday night to take on Birmingham. This could be a hard game, Blues lost on the opening day but did see off Bristol City at the weekend. Both teams are struggling with a lack of depth in their ranks, but we`ll be very much second favourites on the night.
Vital Quotes:
“Anyone who tracked the progress of our pre-season will know he came in with an injury. If we put him in from the start and he gets hurt again because he isn`t ready then we`re back to square one. We`ll look at him again, assess when we think it`s right to put him into a game for 60 minutes.”
Phil Parkinson to the Bolton News, making a very fair point on why we shouldn`t necessarily expect Filipe Morais to come into the side tomorrow.
Vital Bolton could not find anything insightful from Harry Redknapp
Birmingham City Team News:
Birmingham lost forward Che Adams to a hamstring injury and will be out for a lot more games than the one tomorrow night. Isaac Vassell, relation to former England striker Darius, comes straight into the squad having signed on Monday, while David Davis, Jonathan Grounds and Lukas Jutkiewicz should all be available after illness and/or injury. Marcel Kieftenbeld will also be available after successfully appealing his red card from the weekend.
Player to watch: Jacques Maghoma
Interestingly, a young Maghoma was released from Tottenham in 2009, when a certain Mr H Redknapp Esq. was manager there. Eight years on, Redknapp manages Maghoma once again. He is a fast and direct winger who had a good game against Bristol City at the weekend, and will most likely give us problems.
Bolton Wanderers Team News:
Sammy Ameobi and Josh Vela will definitely be out, obviously, while David Wheater probably misses out too. Filipe Morais aggravated his knee after his short but effective cameo at Millwall, so may not form part of the squad.
Player to watch: Mark Little
I would expect Little to get the nod at right back again if Morais isn`t fit. While he was solid defensively on Saturday he offered little going forward. Little should be able to play the wing-back role, having played in the system at Bristol City in their promotion season, hopefully, one of the summer signings in this position can crack it quickly.
Match Facts & Stats
Bolton`s last trip to St Andrews ended in a 1-0 defeat in February 2016. Prior to that though, they had won three of their last five trips, including that FA Cup quarter-final in 2011. The last draw here for us was in 2000.
The last four games between these two sides have ended 1-0, with Bolton losing three of them.
We have lost our last eight away games against Harry Redknapp teams, the last of those a defeat at QPR in January 2014. The last win came in September 2006`s 1-0 win at Portsmouth.
If we fail to score tomorrow, it will be four games against Birmingham without scoring, which has never happened.
Match Prediction:
I think we`ll score, but that`s about it. 2-1 win for Birmingham.
Next Fixtures:
Two home games, starting with Saturday`s league clash with Derby, before hosting Sheffield Wednesday midweek in the second round of The Cheap Energy Drink Cup