City were edged out on Saturday afternoon by a promotion chasing Bolton side, despite being good value for a point.
Mark Kennedy switched the system for the game starting with a back five. It was a 5-4-1 in possession and in possession it was more of a 3-4-2-1. It looked like a bold decision, Mark isn’t scared to change things around and hitting them on the counter attack was probably the best thing we could have done. It is not often you can go away from home to a team like Bolton and play them off the park, and Mark recognized that, especially after we tried to do that away against Peterborough. The game fell away for us because of two mistakes and as the picture above shows we battled and gave it everything but losing to a team like Bolton is nothing to worry about.
When we beat Derby a few weeks ago, I ranted on about the quality of their squad and Bolton are no different. They might not seem as big because they have been down to League Two recently but they have a big fanbase, an impressive stadium and an incredible financial backing for this level and that is shown in the quality of their squad. I’d have taken a point at kick-off and I don’t think that would have been an unfair result. Bolton had some good chances, no doubt about that but the two goals we gave away were errors. I don’t like if’s and but’s but it’s one of them games where you can say if the linesman doesn’t change the decision, we potentially don’t take that throw-in quickly that led to the second goal, and you have a completely different game and probably a hard earnt point. I’m not going to get in detail with expected goals but let me just tell you that ours was higher than theirs and we also could have had a penalty too. It is purely swings and roundabouts, definitely not anything to worry about.
One thing I think we did miss was Tom Hopper. Ben House has been brilliant for the past two games but he struggled against a back-three and that was made even harder with 6’5″ Ricardo Santos in the centre of it. Tom is much better at putting himself about and giving the centre-halves a battle, while Ben is more of technical option that worked against a weaker backline such as Bristol Rovers. I’m not saying Ben is not good enough, he just gave the ball away too much and got marked out of the game too easily on Saturday. However, Tom wasn’t available so starting him was never an option to Mark anyway.
We started quite well I thought, Jack Diamond had a golden chance after some good play right in front of the away fans but he just couldn’t find the finish. We kept them fairly quiet too, their biggest chance came when a ball was played in behind Paudie O’Connor, leaving Adam Jackson exposed. The latter made a challenge, the home fans appealed for a penalty but the referee waved it away. Well, that was until the linesman corrected the decision and it was given. The referee looked adamant at the time that it wasn’t, it was a split second decision and it even looked like the Bolton attacker was going to be booked for dissent. Dion Charles netted the penalty, I didn’t see it as I went to get something to eat thinking the referee waved it away (that is a lesson to not leave too early). I have obviously seen it back and it was a well hit penalty and that left us a goal down going into half-time.
We started the second half showing a lot of fight and structure to our game. We started to have chances and we definitely should have taken one. We struggled to break them down for the first fifteen minutes of the half, but a change from the gaffer changed our game. He opted for Max Sanders from the bench and we got to see Danny Mandriou for the first time too. Sanders improved our midfield no end, with Sorensen having little to no impact for us (for the first time this season I thought). Mandriou also looked dangerous, Bolton probably hadn’t of done their homework considering he hasn’t featured yet and with Diamond, Garrick and Mandriou we look to have a very dangerous forward line going forward. We looked up for it, as much as House struggled, he was up for it and tried to battle away. O’Connor and Regan Poole played like animals in the second half too, we looked like we might just get a point.
O’Connor had a really good chance but somehow his header didn’t hit the back of net, but rather than that it ended up well over the bar. We should have had a penalty too, similarly to the Bolton penalty Diamond was pulled down in the area. I think I knew at the time it wasn’t going to be given as you have to remember the referee didn’t give the first one, it was his linesman. We’ve had two penalties in recent weeks, so perhaps we just didn’t get the rub of the green this time. One massive positive was obviously was Mandriou. He looked on it despite having played no minutes this season and with him and Diamond in a front three in the future, we could have some opponents seriously worried. He looked to be a smart signing when we completed it and Saturday started to back that up.
The second goal did come for Bolton though, and it was a bizarre mistake by Sean Roughan. The young lad had played really well up until that point and you do have to feel for him. He threw the ball straight to a Bolton man and some smart play between their front men sent them through on goal and that wrapped up a game we should have had a point in. I’m happy I’ve seen little criticism to Roughan compared to some of the posts I saw last season on social media. He is young and it is something that will never happen again to him, and to go and speak to BBC Radio Lincolnshire afterwards was a brave decision as most would hide away but he admitted his mistake and said he’ll learn from it. At the end of the day that is all we can ask.
It was disappointing to lose but I am not disheartened by that performance at all, we showed fight and we were good value for a point in the end and six points from nine is not bad at all. We now move onto a home game, for the first time in a while with the Imps hosting Charlton. Hopefully we can get some points out of that and a performance to match.