Stockport County meet Bolton Wanderers in a Greater Manchester derby in the 2025-26 Sky Bet League One Play-Off Final.
Victory would see Stockport achieve a return to the Championship after a 24-year absence, whilst Bolton look to climb back into the second tier for the first time since 2018-19 season.
Team News
Stockport will welcome Lewis Bate back into contention after he sat out their two semi-final victories over Stevenage.
Tyler Onyango (hamstring) and Brad Hill (knee) are still ruled out.
Bolton will be without captain, Eoin Toal after he suffered a hamstring injury during their 1-0 second-leg victory at Bradford.
Corey Blackett-Taylor (thigh), Johnny Kenny (knee) and Marcus Forss (hamstring) remain absent.
When is Kick-Off?
Stockport face Bolton at Wembley Stadium on Sunday 24 May at 1pm BST, live on Sky Sports Main Event and Football channels in the UK.
Stat Attack
- This is Stockport’s first EFL Play-Off Final meeting against Bolton.
- Bolton are winless in their last four league meetings against Stockport when played as the away team (D1, L3).
- Stockport scored twice in both of their two regular-season meetings against Bolton this campaign, having won 2-0 at home then drawn 2-2 away.
- Stockport have scored six goals and conceded one goal in their last three matches (W3).
- Bolton’s two playoff goals both came in the second half of both legs of their semi-final tie against Bradford.
Prediction
Having comfortably beaten Stevenage in a pair of dominant performances across their two-legged semi-final, Stockport have to be favourites in my opinion because they showed that they can grind out the win in the away leg then absolutely dominated at home.
Bolton though demonstrated that they too can grind out results after resiliently digging in defensively against Bradford, yet still possessed better attacking quality venturing forward which shows how dangerous they’re with players like Amario Cozier-Duberry and Ruben Rodrigues.
If Stockport turn up with the same dominant performance which saw them thrash Stevenage at home then this could be a routine result, but my instinct is that we will see a cagey battle with a second-half winner otherwise it’s heading to penalties and a 1-1 draw.
My thought however is that this could be Stockport’s time and would be nice to see a fresh team back in the Championship next season.
Prediction: Stockport 1-0 Bolton
Result: Stockport 1-4 Bolton
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