Manchester United are eager to return to winning ways in the Premiership after losing to both Chelsea and Liverpool, but they will not have an easy job against high-flying Bolton. The Trotters are playing extremely well at the moment and they have nothing to lose, so we can expect another strong performance from the visitors.

United made amends for derby defeats

Manchester United proved a real character by beating Arsenal in the FA Cup despite the fact that Sir Alex Ferguson had fielded a pretty unfamiliar side, while they continued the good run by qualifying for the Champions League quarter-finals at the expense of Marseille. The two victories will serve as a big boost before the decisive battles of the season, so we can say that Manchester United enter the closing stages on a high. While Javier Hernandez and Wayne Rooney are slowly building an excellent partnership up front, United have major problems at the back, with Rio Ferdinand likely to miss the remainder of the season with a calf injury. With Nemanja Vidic also on the sidelines, the hosts will face major problems in defence as Chris Smalling and Wes Brown are by no means capable of stopping players like Kevin Davies, Daniel Sturridge and Johan Elmander.

Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Darren Fletcher, John O’Shea, Rafael, Anderson and Owen Hargreaves are all out, but Jonny Evans and Ji-Sung Park return to contention.

Five wins in six games

The excellent start of the season hinted that this could be the most successful season in Bolton’s history and Owen Coyle’s side are still on the right track. The Trotters successfully overcame a poor run of form which happened somewhere around the new year and they have been in remarkable form over the last few weeks. The Trotters not only climbed to the 7th place in the Premiership standings, but they also made it to the FA Cup semi-finals by beating Wigan, Fulham and Birmingham City on the travels, thus showing they are no longer the team that only pick up points from home games. The players are brimming with confidence following the great run of results and they enter this game without any pressure, unlike their opponents, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they get something from this game. With United’s defence all over the place at the moment, the Trotters look very likely to continue their run of scoring at least one goal in last eight games.

Daniel Sturridge and Gretar Steinsson return to the side, but Mark Davies is out with an ankle problem. Zat Knight has resumed light training but is still not ready to feature, while Samuel, O’Brien, Davis and Ricketts remain sidelined.

Verdict

Manchester United are in good scoring form, but they will need to score quite a few against Bolton in order to win the game as their defence cannot be trusted without Vidic and Ferdinand. The Trotters have been in great form lately, so backing both teams to score looks like a good bet here.

Our prediction: Both teams to score

Odds: 1.85 (17/20)

Bookmaker: Victor Chandler