Oct 2009

What a Swine

Some newspaper reports suggest Bolton have become victim the swine flu pandemic, with at least four players likely to miss the Carling Cup game at Chelsea tomorrow night. A cynical person might suggest it's a good cover story for Gary Megson to rest players for a game he does't actually care about much without being accused of 'disrespecting the cup'.

Worth The Price of Admission

Bolton won an exciting game (there's something I wasn't expecting to write earlier in the season) on Sunday, beating Everton 3-2 at The Reebok. Lee and Cahill scored early for Wanderers before a cracker from Saha and Fallaini goal brought the Toffees back into it. Ivan Klasnic scored his first goal in ther 86th minute to give Bolton the points.

Goals are
here.

Loss With Interest

So Bolton played Manchester United at Old Trafford.. and lost. That bit's probably predictable. The game was anything but predictable. The goals were an early own goal by Knight (not really his fault) and a goal fron Valencia to put United 2-0 at half time but Bolton hit back in the second half, pinned the champions back and scored when Matt Taylor got on the end of Kevin Davies's cross. Bolton also had a goal disallowed (I haven't had a chance to check how good a decision it was) and for the last 10 minutes or so had all 11 United players virtually back inside their area. The game ended with United frantically playing out time near a corner flag, something you don't often see them needing to do.

So, a loss, but not in any sense a dispiriting one. Bolton largely picked up with the beter style of play they had going before the international break and looked a very good side overall. Plenty of cause for continuing optimism.

Taylor's goal is
here.

A Creditable Draw

It's amazing what a bit of positive thinking and a couple of team changes can do. Gary Megson - who seems to suddenly have cottoned on that you need a bit of flair as well as muscle - gave Korean Chung-Yong Lee his first start in a 4-3-3 formation against Spurs at the Reebok yesterday. The game proved highly entertaining and ended 2-2, with Tottenham (the side with top 4 aspirations and £50m worth of strikers remember) having to come from behind twice. Gardner opened the scoring after only 3 minutes after Cudicini could only deflect Lee's shot straight to him before Krancjar equalised from Crouch's knock down.

Bolton's second goal was a wonderful move - arguably the best goal I've seen at the Reebok since Okocha was in his best form - and again involved the Korean, this time putting Cohen through to cross for Davies to score at the back post. Soon after Spurs equalised again, Choluka's header direct from a corner. So basically, Spurs played the way everyone expects Bolton to play and Bolton played the way everyone expects Spurs to play! Chung-Yong Lee was obviously man of the match although he was substitued as fatigue set in and he alone is enough for a sense of optimism that was utterly missing after the first game of the season.

I'll be honest, given the fixtures I didn't expect us to get a single point in October, so we're already ahead of schedule. I still don't expect us to get many more and pragmatism may be a better option against Manchester United and Chelsea but give the way Sunderland very nearly beat United yesterday playing exactly the way Bolton have been playing in the last couple of weeks, who knows?