Imagine for a moment the rules of football had been changed and the game had to be played to a result, not with extra time or penalties, but with the schoolyard mantra of next goal wins. Imagine again that if those rules had applied to last night's game they would still be playing. Go on, close your eyes and imagine it. Not pleasant.
To say last night was a shocker is to put too mild a comment on it but I have been trying since ten o'clock last night to think of a word that doesn't have some sort of expletive in front of it to characterise the game and I can't. So, as I'm feeling generous, I'll give you two. It was fucking shit.
Now, we are aware that the game was played on a pitch that looked like it had been physically turned over so that the grass was on the bottom and then trampled over by the hordes from the circus trying to get hold of Nelly before she made her way back into the jungle, but that is not to excuse millioniare footballers, supposedly paid to try and play some kind of football and not to just hoof it where no one is and then expect someone who isn't there to keep hold of it. And this is not just having a go at the Bolton players, Wigan were just as culpable. Even though the stream I was watching it on was free and the pictures were thirty seconds behind the commentary on the BBC, I was still shouting for my money back.
I've seen some bad pitches. T'Reebok itself was a mud bath for a large part of the last promotion season but supposedly inferior players still managed to play it on the floor. Sunday League players can play it on the floor. What was served last night was not good enough.
However, even though I say that, some things rose above the dross. There does appear to be more of a team ethic amongst the players and they hassled and harried in much the same way they did Spurs on Sunday and another clean sheet is a plus. However the forward play of Sunday was strangely lacking and it wasn't until towards the end that some chances came, unfortunately coming to Matty Taylor who seems to have been taking shooting tips from Fabrice.
I can see why St Owen didn't start Little Jack or Dracula, this wasn't the sort of game for these young men and their trickery. However, when they did come in, both showed why they are NOT in their parent club's first team. Wilshere was eased off a ball and started crying rather than trying to win the ball back, a typically Arsenal trait, while Weiss seemed to just put his head down and run until being tackled, then stopped. Maybe some detention for the kids in the team ethic classroom wouldn't go amiss. And don't think we didn't miss Matty and his prima donna attitude after being subbed. We are Bolton, we don't do that.
However, we wouldn't go as far as some people who seem to be starting to grumble. The manager has taken positives from a game that we haven't lost and while the forward line is missing it's figurehead and sometimes missing the stand behind the goal never mind the goal when shooting, you don't lose games when your goals against equals zero and this whilst missing it's leader. There are bigger challenges to be had, Blackburn away already looming large on the horizon, and if you had said to me after looking at that pitch before the game yesterday would I have taken a point, I would have said yes. I just didn't expect the game to be so dire.
The majority of reports this morning also focused on the pitch, The Currant saying the pitch was worse than the weather, The Nazi likening the pitch to the weather that postponed the initial game, The Mirror calling it "a shambles" while The Granuiad confirms that the state of the pitch may have caused the teams to revert back to what used to be type.
So we move forward and at least find ourselves a place above the Dingles, which can only be a good thing. Talking to thecrapwebsite Zat mentions his new defensive partner and bigs him up before noting
He is bringing the best out of me and hopefully I can continue playing the way that I am playing. Davo is the captain of the team but I feel like a leader at the back, talking to the midfielders and other defenders.
With Cahill out it did need Zat to step up and make himself the player that got into the England squad. While we don't for one minute think he was ever that good anyway, his performances have certainly been top notch and playing alongside him appears to be doing Not Mike the world of good. We don't yet know how long Cahill will be out for so it seems that this will be our defensive partnership for some time to come. It is not the best of arrangements as we would prefer Not Mike to Stefan on the left, Stefan last night seeming to be an accident waiting to happen again, but two clean sheets in three games is testament to one thing that no one can grumble about.
There will be a late update tomorrow so until then, let off some steam Bennett.
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