Didn't see the game today, just watched the highlights, 4 good goals, 2nd goal for set piece was lovely and Jalo's 2nd was a thing of beauty. Looking at the stats it looks like we beat them up and the highlights didn't do the performance justice? Did we finally ditch the dreadful 3 at the back aswel?
We deserved to win, but much work to do. Bolton did a triple substitution in the first half, which cost them later when they had to finish the game with ten men due to an injury. Flavell played well but did his customary clanger when dropping the ball, but they missed a sitter to not make most of it. To be fair we played with ten men too by bringing on O Keefe. Bland looked really good and likes to get forward and get stuck in. They had no answer to Jalo all afternoon. Connell got booked having to take one for the team. Dexter had one good run where Russell was disappointed he went for goal instead of squaring up to him for an hat trick chance. Russell was the second best player on the pitch. Bolton fans looked to be fighting eachother, which was amusing. The referee wasn't too bad, apart from being too eager to stop play when it's not an head injury.
Defence still looks fragile when the midfield disappears (which it did for 15 mins in second half). But the team looked up for it, they had ideas how to crack the Bolton defence and they were sharp. Phillips had a good attempt on goal that was well saved but Russell was almost on to the rebound before anyone else moved.
Most of us have been calling for 4 at the back for ages. Hopefully this performance means we stick with it. Such a simple yet effective change.
We were excellent. I think that’s the best 90 minute display of the season. I think the comparable one is Rotherham at home but they’re a worse team on paper than Bolton. I thought the Lincoln home game for an hour was the best we’ve played this season & it was close to that in quality but we were able to maintain it for 90 minutes today. There’s no doubt them going down to 10 men benefitted us but I didn’t get the impression they were going to get back into it even at 11 versus 11. I felt the team had a real solid feel to it. Defenders that did the basics well. Bland kept it really simple but I don’t think he gave it away cheaply once. Centre backs were fine. Earl had one silly moment in the first 10 but was good after that & then all the front 6 played well. Jalo the obvious stand out with his double but Humphrys looked up for it again. DKD had another good game. Midfield looked really well balanced. O’Keeffe looked a bit dodgy when he came on but he was playing on the right in a front 3. It was a bit weird as we were happy to settle for the win with our subs but then they went down to 10 men so there were opportunities for more goals if we really wanted them which led to players like O’Keeffe & Lembikosa getting into shooting positions. We did our homework with set pieces too. Jalo’s first goal came from a well worked set piece. I’ve no doubt Bolton fans will tell you how bad they were but I’d prefer to say we made them look bad.
