That's the only way I can describe our performance on Saturday. None of our players who completed the full 90 minutes can honestly hold their head up high and be satisfied with their individual performance. If they can, they shouldn't be playing for Bolton Wanderers.
In a way, it shouldn't come too much as a surprise to us loyal Wanderers fans. We've seen for years how the team raises it's game when the big guns are in town, yet struggle completely against the likes of the newly promoted teams. How many times have we seen the likes of Arsenal, Man United et al come to the Reebok and really struggle to take anything from the game? Yet a newly promoted team like Watford, or a struggler like Sunderland often match us for the full 90 minutes.
Yet Bolton were poor on Saturday, even with that in mind. To make matters worse, Watford weren't fantastic, they were just helped by the lacklustre performance of their hosts. Had it been a more established Premiership team, like Newcastle, Portsmouth or Everton, rather than last season's Championship Play-Off winners, who are yet to taste victory this season, and Bolton would have been looking at a three or four goal defeat. And if one of the big guns had happened to be in town on Saturday? The potential scoreline doesn't bear thinking about.
That is to take nothing away from Watford though. Aidy Bothroyd said after the match that if Watford play like that for the rest of the season, they'll be fine. I can't disagree with his comments. The Reebok Stadium, especially in the last year, has become something of a fortress. Only three teams took all three points from us here last season, two of which were the Champions and the runners up. So for Watford to come to one of the more difficult grounds in the Premiership, and play the hosts off the park - that suggests that if they can throw a goal or two into similar performances, they should avoid relegation.
If I were Bothroyd though, I would be fuming at the amount of time added on by the assistant referee. I couldn't believe that four minutes of stoppage time were given - I honestly couldn't see how that came about. And by the time Gary Speed hammered home the penalty, a further two minutes had been played. For us Bolton fans, all too often during our stint in the Premiership, we've been let down by last minute equalisers or winners. So there's definately an element of "what goes around comes around." But that's not the attitude we should be taking. Rather, we should feel for the Hornets, especially as on a better day, if nothing else they wouldn't have had four minutes added on.
As I said before, none of our players can be satisfied with their performances, but there are some who did play better than others. Quinton Fortune, Abdoulaye Meite and Tal Ben Haim were fairly solid at the back - with the exception of Damian Francis hitting the post in the first half, it took more than 80 minutes for Watford to carve out a clear cut chance. Those three in the defence did extremely well to limit the Hornet's to either long range efforts or weak headers, all of which Jussi Jaaskelainen dealt comfortably with.
As for the midfield, Gary Speed didn't do much wrong, his major let-down was that this was a contender for his quietest match in a Bolton shirt. I barely noticed him on the pitch until he slammed home the goal. Ricardo Vaz Te's introduction was a breath of fresh air, and at least for the remainder of the first half, the side looked more alive and dangerous with him playing. Abdoulaye Faye was much like Speed, very quiet, but very little went wrong for him.
The rest of the team deservedly ought to look back on their performances in shame. As the match wore on, and the frustrations of the Wanderers faithful mounted, the last thing we needed to see was the defence punting the ball straight back to Watford's defence. Yet that's exactly what Jaaskelainen kept doing. If he wasn't launching the ball up himself, he was rolling it out for Ben Haim to do the same. It should be noted that I thought Ben Haim was poor once he switched to right back, although I'll attribute this to the fact that he was playing out of position.
For a man usually so reliable for his vision and ability to start attacks, Ivan Campo was woeful on Saturday. Although it wasn't helped that there was virtually no movement up front, Campo was extremely disappointing. And how Kevin Nolan and El Hadji Diouf lasted as long as they did - in Nolan's case, the entire match - I don't know. Diouf can normally conjure up some wicked crosses out of nothing, but this side of his game was absent on Saturday, as was his running - I don't think he created any of the rare attacks we made. Nolan's major contribution was to pick up a needless booking that will undoubtedly lead to a suspension in the future.
As for the other two subs, Idan Tal was impressive when he came on, getting stuck in and embarking upon a fine run which ultimately led to the penalty. There was no question that it was a foul - in fact, it was rather needless on Danny Shittu's part as Tal appeared, to me, to be running the ball out of play. I don't think Andranik Teimourian was on the pitch long enough to make a meaningful contribution.
And the new boy? I thought Anelka had a good, if unspectacular, debut. Obviously the Frenchman is low on match fitness, and it could be a few matches yet before we see the best of him. But I thought there was enough evidence to show that this could be money well spent by Big Sam. Our two best efforts came from Anelka. He would have been disappointed not to hit the target at least in the first half with his effort after a fine turn. But early in the second, there was some fantastic twisting and turning to create the opening for a shot that brought a good save out of Ben Foster. Once Anelka regains full match fitness, I'm sure it won't be too long before he's banging in the goals for us.
So, on to Middlesbrough this Saturday. All I really need to say is, we must perform better.