It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times

UPDATE:REEDITED SO THE COHEN SENTENCE MAKES SENSE!

Well, it certainly was a tale of two citys last night. Made to look ordinary by a resolute Bolton team, unless you read The Currant, they were a poor reflection of a side that cost £200million. And don't believe that they are on the up. From what we saw last night, and after their defeat to Hull at the weekend, they will have difficulty scraping into the Europa League.

But a bit of sublime skill from Viera and Adebyebye and a rash moment from Stefan Dennis cannot take away how well T'Trotters played. From front to back, barring two players, they were exemplary, chasing and harrying as if they were in the bottom three. (STOP PRESS: They are). There was some one touch passing the like of which Andy Gray seemed never to have seen before from a Bolton team. This is the way they have to play if we are to stay up.

And make no mistake, this is where the business end of the season starts. I'm not going to list the games again, Big Sam did it enough times last night on Sky Sports, repeating the joke at least three times that "as long as they can win six of them he'll be happy. Ah ha ha ha ha ha!" OK, maybe not in a Lord Flasheart kind of way, but he was admitting that they are winnable.

The only thing missing last night was the finish. The misfiring Swede lived up to my nickname for him but managed to put himself in better positions than he has done, SuperKev gave the Citeh defence a torrid time. At the back, bar the Adebayor goal, Knight and Not Mike were exeptional at keeping the forward line that I bigged up yesterday quiet and Steinsson flew down the wings enough times to keep the City defence busy when they weren't being worried by Chungy (Copyright Matt Taylor). Muamba managed to get a shot on target, but then blotted his copybook literally ten seconds later by ballooning a shot so high it came down where Maine Road used to be, where it was soon involved in a knife fight, only being taken down by a drive by shooting by some lads called Dwayne driving a stolen Prius that was later seen wrapped around one of the railings of Alexandra Park. But I digress.

Tamir, Tamir, Tamir. If you don't pull your socks up soon all you will be known as is Avi's son who used to play for Bolton. (New record for that one broken by Alan Parry last night at 4:25). Imagine Little Davies' face when he realised that Jack Wilshere was in the team only to find out seconds later that he was the one that had been dropped. Yes, a nice little passing sequence with Chungy and a last minute tackle were well done, but last night I thought you'd changed your name to "Cohen. Oh Dear" I heard it so much. You see those things around your ankles? Pull them up or you'll be back where the former manager found you.

Stefan Dennis. Where do I start? How about this quote:

I stuck my leg out and he ran into me, what else could I do? The ball wasn’t exactly going to stay on the pitch, and I think any normal referee would have just given a goal kick but when you come to these places you don’t get anything

Let me break it down. One, you left your leg hanging there as an invitation for Johnson to run over it. It was left there so long I had the time to get out of my chair, get the tube to Euston, the train the Manchester, connect at Oxford Road for the bus, run into the stadium and fall over it and it STILL would have been a penalty. What you could have done was not stick it out and use your considerable bulk to shepherd the ball out. Two, there was a normal referee on the pitch and he gave the right decision. Three, if you know you don't get anything, whydafookyoudoit?

Actually, maybe the referee isn't normal, seeing as how he saw your attempt to cut Shaun Wright-Phillips even more down to size as only a yellow. The devil on my left shoulder was telling me to call for a red, thereby making St Owen play either Jlloyd or Ricky in the next game. Actually, the angel on my right shoulder was telling me as well, but I was well onto my fifth glass of wine then so it may have affected his perception. And the ref did also miss Kolo Toure's early entry for the next Olympic's new event of "grass tobogganing without the toboggan". Not that the misfiring Swede would have got to the ball and put it in the net.

But, to equal all this out we had to debut of Jack Wilshere. Neat touches on the ball, holding it up well, better vision than the players he was playing with. If Mr Whinegear has any sense he will loan Jack to us for next season as well. St Owen knows a good thing when he sees it and we can only hope, pray and sacrifice our eldest that he plays him alongside Weiss and Little Davies in the next seven games. Because for one they are better than what is there at the moment and for two, it's going to take everyone else a couple of games to tune into his wavelength.

So we are now 19th and Stan Colllymore is probably laughing up his sleeve, while hiding in some bushes trying to avoid the police. Bastard. I really hope he gets his and not in a good way.

Until tomorrow, Towers out.