Bolton couldn’t live with Manchester United on Saturday but should find things much easier versus Norwich and I expect them to win.
An opening day 4-0 triumph for Wanderers at Loftus Road has been followed by three consecutive Premier League defeats but those losses came against Manchester City, Liverpool and the Red Devils last time out, and there’s no shame in failing to pick up any points from that trio of matches.
The 5-0 score line at The Reebok on Saturday might be cause for concern but Bolton boss Owen Coyle is too shrewd to let one performance affect his normally pretty resilient squad and I’m sure he’ll get them back on track immediately.
With Ivan Klasnic now looking at home in the English top flight, Bolton have a strike force superior to that of recent seasons and Kevin Davies is the perfect foil for the Croatian forward.
That duo carry a real threat and I think Bolton will have way too much for a Norwich team struggling to make an impact on their return to the Premier League.
Like Coyle, I’ve got a lot of time for Norwich chief Paul Lambert but having been fairly confident he’d get it right I’m not sure he has the players to work with. Norwich lack a cutting edge in front of goal and they were fairly limp in defeat to West Brom on Sunday.
I thought Bolton would have been trading at around 1.60 for this given their Premier League pedigree and I’m happy to snap up the 1.80 on offer.
Norwich impressed at Chelsea but still lost 3-1 and they could flatter to deceive fairly frequently throughout the campaign.
2pts Back Bolton (vs. Norwich) @ 1.80 (Unibet)