Bolton continued their good home form with a 3-0 win over Birmingham, although the scoreline does slightly flatter them.
El-Hadji Diouf opened the scoring in the final 20 minutes after Nolan had a goal incorrectly ruled out for offside, before Nicolas Anelka grabbed two to finish the game off.
Bolton started well, forcing a save from Maik Taylor in the first minute after they won a free kick in a good position. Shortly after, Taylor saved again from Anelka after Diouf found him in space in the box. Not much else happened in the first half - Campo and Guthrie both had long range shots that sailed over the bar, and the half came to a close at 0-0 when Bolton really should have been ahead from all their chances.
But it was Birmingham that were nearly ahead at the beginning of the second half, after Jaaskelainen had to save from Campo’s header towards his own net. The visitors had their only spell of good pressure, but failed to make it count, Larsson sending a free kick over the bar. And Bolton were wrongly denied the lead soon after, when Diouf’s free kick reached Nolan at the far post, who took the tap-in before seeing the linesman’s flag, which was raised because he thought Kevin Davies had a touch before Nolan scored.
But Bolton kept making chances and were in front minutes later when Diouf sold the defender with a dummied volley (although it might not have been deliberate) before cooly placing the ball past Taylor.
And the Wanderers doubled their lead 6 minutes later when Djourou’s awful throw-in (described as a horrendous howler on the Bolton website) was intercepted by Anelka, who took it around Maik Taylor to earn his ninth goal of the season, and his 100th in England. He had obviously learnt from his mistake at Liverpool, because when presented with an open net he took a couple of touches towards the goal, before calmly slotting the ball home just before the nearest defender arrived.
Birmingham could have grabbed a goal back when Kapo rounded Jussi but Nicky Hunt volleyed it off the line (I’ll have to wait until the highlights to see how close it actually was), but Anelka finished the game off in the final minute of stoppage time, when Nolan’s ball reached him and he fired his shot past Taylor and into the bottom corner. His 10th goal of the season brings him to joint top of the Premier League’s top scorers.
Bolton moved back up to 14th on goal difference, and they are now three points clear of the relegation zone.
It is a great result for us - whether it was actually a true 3-0 or not I’m not sure.
The game seemed a lot closer than that, especially in the first half, but you can’t complain about winning 3-0.
We started well but seemed to run out of ideas a bit. In the end we needed a few bits of quality to get us through.
- Gary Megson
Oh yeah, and Jaidi was applauded on his first return to the Reebok, Henrik Pedersen did the half time golden gamble draw, and the stadium announcer couldn’t make his mind up whether Pedersen or Anelka was the ‘goal machine’. Well, how many did Pedersen score before Christmas?
