Bolton Wanderers have lost just two of their last 20 matches against Bradford City in all competitions (W7 D11), with both league meetings between the teams in 2025-26 finishing as draws.
Bradford have scored just four goals in their last nine visits to Bolton in all competitions (W1 D4 L4), with 50% of those coming in one game, a 2-1 League Cup victory in September 2020.
This will be the 10th time that Bolton Wanderers have taken part in the EFL play-offs, the joint-most of any side alongside Brentford, Huddersfield Town, Preston North End and Sheffield United. Only twice have they won promotion via this method, in 1994-95 and 2000-01 in the second tier.
Bradford have competed in six previous EFL play-off campaigns, winning promotion twice in 1995-96 in the third tier under Chris Kamara and 2012-13 in League Two under Phil Parkinson. Their last play-off appearance was in League Two in 2022-23, losing in the semi-finals to Carlisle.
In the League One play-offs, the team finishing 5th hasn’t lost the first leg of the semi-finals in any of the last nine seasons (W5 D4) since Bradford suffered a 3-1 defeat to Millwall in 2015-16.
During the 2025-26 League One season, Bolton Wanderers had more shots than any other side (772), while only Stevenage (455) faced fewer attempts than the Trotters (461). Meanwhile, the two sides to allow opponents the lowest xG on their goal were Bradford (46.4) and Bolton (48.2).
Bradford’s Max Power ranked in the top-five for both chances created from set plays (39, 4th) and passes played into the opposition box (352, 5th) during the 2025-26 League One season. He has played in five EFL play-off matches, featuring for Sunderland in their 2018-19 (3) and 2020-21 (2) play-off campaigns, when ultimately, they failed to win promotion both times.
Across the three EFL divisions in 2025-26, Bolton’s Amario Cozier-Duberry ranked first among players under the age of 21 for assists (10), shots (97) and chances created (53) and was second for dribbles (130) and touches in the opposition box (164).
