Match Preview: Hull City v Bolton Wanderers

Bolton Wanderers enjoyed a decent Christmas, with a win over Rotherham on Boxing Day then a 0-0 draw with Stoke City on Saturday lifting the Whites out of the relegation zone. And they kick off 2019 with a visit to an improving Hull City.

Hull had a very fine December, winning five and drawing one of their six matches, which has lifted them to 14th place in the league - 11 points ahead of Bolton and only 9 points away from the play-offs.

The good news is that Bolton and Hull have traded victories in their last seven meetings, with Hull coming out on top in the most recent clash back in October. So that statistic would suggest a Bolton victory is coming this afternoon.

However, we’ve lost all of our last four visits to Hull and haven’t won there in over a decade. There’s more bad news when it comes to Bolton’s away form, given we’ve not won any of our last 10 games on the road. We’ve also only won one of our last 10 matches in January - but that win came exactly 12 months ago against... you guessed it... Hull.

Phil Parkinson is likely to make changes given the swift turnaround, and I’d expect to see Josh Magennis start, with a return for Gary O’Neil in midfield and Sammy Ameobi also faces a fitness test. For Hull, former Bolton loanee Reece Burke is likely to start in defence and Fraizer Campbell faces a fitness test, but Jarrod Bowen should start after a hot run of form.

So there’s plenty of intrigue going into today’s clash, and it should be an interesting match. You can follow all the action via our Live Feed on the site from around 2.30pm and via our Twitter feed.