Sunderland nipped across the Pennies, into the fearsome headwind created by Storm Thingy, and were blown away in a game in which we were outplayed, out-fought, out-thought, and had clearly been out-taught. There have been some embarrassing awayday whuppings, and this one is right up there with the most embarrassing of them as Bolton did the simple things right and we did them wrong. Backed by a section of the crowd who looked like they'd just burgled Sports Direct, and who spent 90 minutes looking at our fans, Bolton simply ran riot and we can have no complaints about the result, although plenty about our performance... or lack of it.
t’s been a busy week or so at the club, with Defoe still a possibility, Denver Hume going to Pompey, Ollie Younger to Donny, and Jack Clarke arriving on loan from Spurs. Lee Burge’s health continues to be a cause for concern, while on the bright side former player John McPhail is out of hospital. Elsewhere in football, Watford changed managers, which is hardly a newsworthy event at Vicarage Road, but we should remember that while they’ve made 32 managerial changes since the initial departure of Graham Taylor, in those 35 years we’ve made 29. Mind, “new” boy Roy Hodgson is the sixth manager they’ve had since they last kept a clean sheet in the Prem, and I don’t think even we can match that feat.... actually, we can. LJ is the ninth, but to be fair we’ve not been in the Prem to keep a sheet of any kind. Aint statistics daft? We refreshed ourselves in Bury before arriving at the Reebok/Macron/Whatever, and lined up:
Hoffmann
Winchester Doyle Batth Cirkin
Evans (c) Neil
Dajaku Embleton Gooch
Stewart
... with a bench of Patterson, Pritchard, Roberts, Flanagan, O'Brien, Hume, and Clarke.
We kicked off in our natty yellow and blue away kit defending the South End where our fans were based - but almost immediately conceded possession and thus set the pattern for the afternoon. We struggled to produce anything from the possession we had, and we'd already shown ourselves to be susceptible to the pace of the lad with the big hair down our left, as he ran at Cirkin with real intent, when things went wrong. Despite keeping the Trotters pinned back for most of the opening exchanges, another ball forward tempted Hoff into a crazy charge to the edge of his area, and Charles knocked it up into the air in hope more than expectation, but our keeper was that far out of position that the ball took one bounce and hit the underside of the net with 19 minutes gone.
Bugger. Still, it was only one, and there was plenty of time to put things right.
Aye? Their next burst down our left almost saw us go two down, but Lee somehow contrived to plant Fossey's cut-back over our bar. A bit of a let-off which we tried to take advantage of, but the final ball just wasn't there and just as we fans were thinking "get the first half over and change things for the second", our attack faltered at the feet of Afolayan, and he was in the right place of yet another Bolton right-wing break to make it 2-0 on 40 minutes.
That was the first half lost, even with the single added minute, and our optimism that we could claw anything back from that mess was proved to be well and truly unfounded.
No changes for the second period, which started pretty much the same as the first - we had plenty of the ball but couldn't forge any chances. Six minutes in, Charles got his second when Alofayan set hum up perfectly. LJ's response was to replace Cirkin and Neil with Clarke and Pritchard, moving Gooch deeper to maintain our numbers at the back.
He needn't have bothered. Just before the hour we were carved apart again, leaving Lee with the easiest of chances to make it 4-0. Which he did.
Thereafter it was a case of damage limitation, although Stewart did set up Roberts, just on for Dajaku, for a shot that the keeper dealt with. Just as we were discussing where this shocker ranked in the pantheon of horror shows, a Bolton cross from their left was met by the diving Batth, producing an own goal of truly Verginian proportions. As if this wasn't enough with five still to go, the home fans in the East stand, nearest us, who'd spent the whole game looking at us rather than the game, started lobbing bottles at us, resulting in several ejections from both sides of the divide. The biggest cheer went to the middle-aged Trotter, the only one displaying colours, who was first to go.
That wasn't the end of things, though. Two minutes later there was another carve up, ending when Declan John was allowed space to shoot home from the edge of the box. I've no idea how many minutes of added time there were, as I was both disinterested and dodging missiles. Suffice to say we didn't score.
Stats will tell you that we had 59% possession and seven shots, but while I'd agree with the former (although we did precious little with it) I'd vehemently contest the latter. Our solitary corner proved our ineffectiveness, while the opposition pushed us back with ease.
Our worst-ever defeat? By a team that far down the divisions, and by that margin, it probably is. Why in earth change from a three-man back line that had been doing OK to a four that just never gelled?
Man of the Match? Patterson. At least he did nowt wrong.
