West Ham United Cup Preview

By Mark Heys
March 14 2006

A place in the Quarter Finals is at stake as Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United go head to head in an FA Cup replay at Upton Park tommorow evening.

The initial tie ended goalless a month ago with European chasing Bolton perhaps unlucky not to have booked their place in the next round due to a dubious offside decision.

This match up comes just four days after Bolton demolished their London counterparts in a Premiership fixture at the Reebok Stadium thanks to goals from Henrik Pedersen, Gary Speed and Stelios Giannakopoulos.

Understandably the Hammers won't want a repeat of that 4-1 scoreline and will be looking for revenge against a team who they have failed to beat in all competitions since the end of the 2001-2002 season.

Overall the Wanderers have the better record but that will mean nothing against a West Ham side who are undefeated on their home soil since facing Premiership champions Chelsea at the start of January.

Bolton could recall their experienced names with Bruno N'Gotty, El-Hadji Diouf and Abdoulaye Faye all set to return after missing recent games due to injury but there will be no places for Ivan Campo, Khalilou Fadiga and Matt Jansen.

Danish utility player Henrik Pedersen will also be in the frame to start his first game in four months after hitting the winning goal against the Hammers on Saturday.

West Ham boss Alan Pardew is likely to restore Yossi Benayoun, Marlon Harewood and Dean Ashton to the starting line up so the likes of Bobby Zamora and Teddy Sheringham could drop down to the bench.

Irons skipper Nigel Reo-Coker may also be in contention to return after suffering from the effects of a virus.

FA CUP RECORD

28/04/1923 BOLTON WANDERERS 2 WEST HAM UNITED 0

16/01/1937 WEST HAM UNITED 0 BOLTON WANDERERS 0

20/01/1937 BOLTON WANDERERS 1 WEST HAM UNITED 0

08/01/1977 WEST HAM UNITED 2 BOLTON WANDERERS 1

18/02/2006 BOLTON WANDERERS 0 WEST HAM UNITED 0

FA CUP FORM GUIDE:

Played: 5

Won: 2

Drawn: 2

Lost: 1

CONNECTIONS

Steve Banks, Franz Carr, David Cross, Les Ferdinand, Harry Kinsell.

IT HAPPENED WHEN BOLTON PLAYED THE HAMMERS

The first cup replay between these two sides occured nearly seventy years ago when Bolton's David Halford scored the only goal of the game in a 1-0 success at Burnden Park.