It ended up being a Bad Friday for Bolton as they ended up losing 2-1 away to Leeds United. Wanderers were ultimately punished by not turning up at the beginning of either half – the afternoon getting off to the worst possible start when Caleb Ekuban gave the Whites of the dirty Yorkshire variety the lead in the opening minutes. While Wanderers weren`t exactly brilliant for the rest of the half, the deficit was only a single goal at the break. Unfortunately, we pretty much did the same thing at the start of the second half. Despite Ben Alnwick`s good save, and the fact there were three men back to cover, Pablo Hernandez still managed to double Leeds` lead.
After that Bolton got themselves together and had their best phase of the game, Sammy Ameobi crosses for Adam Le Fondre, who headed home to get us on the scoresheet, and then came a few minutes where a Leeds side who had won one game in 2018 were starting to wobble. Ameobi had a chance to add a goal to his assist, going very close, before Will Buckley, on what proved to be an unhappy return to Elland Road.
Given Leeds aren`t particularly good, it was pretty disappointing to concede early in each half like that, although to be fair the home side were pretty positive and more efficient at creating chances. We had more of the ball, used fairly well at times by Reece Burke and Jan Kirchhoff, but ultimately, it`s poor if you can`t keep things tight in the opening few minutes.
We`re still six points clear of the drop zone after the Good Friday results, with Josh Brownhill`s equaliser against Barnsley doing us a favour but Reading and remarkably Sunderland both winning. Attention now turns to Birmingham in more ways than one – I`m sure we`re all surrogate Ipswich fans this afternoon. If Mick McCarthy and co do us a favour and we can beat the Brummies on Tuesday, we could be nine points clear of them with six games to. Basically, don`t panic just yet.
On a slightly moany note, I thought it was pretty embarrassing to see a bunch of Bolton fans, probably with an average age of 18, fill a pub then think it`s absolutely fine to set off a smoke bomb in there when there were families and people who just wanted a beer. Idiots, inconsiderate idiots. Stick to the Capri-Sun, lads (and lasses)