Another away day, another defeat. Bolton`s troubles on the road continued yesterday with a 2-0 defeat at QPR. It was a poor performance, with a decent defensive rearguard keeping us in it. Once Mark Little was given a straight red, for what wasn`t a malicious tackle, but that`s irrelevant, it was ludicrously mistimed and stupid. Had we kept 11 men on the field, we may have salvaged something from the match. Ben Alnwick had been on fine form with a number of saves, while Mark Beevers looked defensively fine, even if they did keep launching the ball back at someone in blue and white hoops. But once we were down to ten, defeat felt much more inevitable and headed goals from Joel Lynch, and then as we tried to get forward in vain, Matt Smith would eventually give QPR the points.
Josh Vela also came off with a twisted ankle at half-time, and while he hasn`t played amazingly in the last few games, he will be a miss in midfield, whether or not Darren Pratley is ready to come back.
A few questions have also been raised about the 3-5-2 system. We`ve been here before, but it might be worth pointing out we won our sole away game playing that formation, and I`m for one struggling to remember all those fantastic away performances with a back four. While we can talk formations until the cows come home, something much deeper must lie in why we`re so awful when we`re playing football at a ground other than the Macron.
We`re still keeping our head just above the relegation zone at least while others around us failed to win yesterday. One of those is Sunderland, who we now play on Tuesday in a huge game. Thankfully, it`s at home.
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