But it was one the Wanderers were ideally looking to take all 3 points from – even with their less than sparkling home record this campaign.
The first goal came quickly, and it was a belter too... Swansea’s Scott Sinclair cut in and curled home a lovely effort giving Adam Bogdan very little chance, hard to pin blame on a defender when a shot like that goes in, sometimes you just have to stand back and admire a good goal. Luckily though, Bolton came back with an equally quick response when Petrov (who’s probably been one of the brighter spots on a dismal campaign) neatly found Chris Eagles in the box with a smart cross, who neatly obliged.
From there for much of the game Bolton took their foot of the pedal and allowed Swansea to completely dominate possession, the stats were frightening to be honest – seeing your own team at home allow the opposition to pass and sweep the ball around wasn’t really my idea of Saturday afternoon heaven. Bolton were clinging on by their finger tips at times, and but for the cross bar and some seriously Keystone Cop defending we could have quite easily come out of the 90 minutes with another home defeat.
I can really only remember the Eagles chance in the second half that went a whisker by the post, to be the only real effort of note... But again, our lack of any kind of clinical finishing was evident – as Drogba showed mid week against Barcelona, you have to take your chances when you get them – as it might be the only one you get!
I, like many of the Bolton fans, continue to firmly scratch my head at just why young Sordell isn’t being given any pitch time whatsoever. £4M for a lot of clubs might be seem as a mediocre spend, but for a club like ours then we really do need to see something from that kind of outlay. The fact he’s on the bench shows he’s match fit, and I can only think that Coyle has some obvious tactical reason which for the rest of us seems either trivial or nonsense – whatever it may be it’s leaving us all a bit dumbfounded.
So the first game in hand comes into play this week, and without over-hyping the Villa game, it really could be the big factor in which league we play next season.