Yippee-ki-yay, mother winners.
It was, I believe, at the end of Die Hard 2, when one of the pilots of a plane that had survived the carnage of the previous two hours turned to his colleague and said “Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.”
And so it came to pass the Bolton Wanderers finally, after two weeks of trying, won a pre season game, at league newcomers Morecambe. Early goals from Chris Eagles and David N`Gog giving us a 2-0 victory by the seaside. Naturally, this doesn`t tell the whole story, Morecambe came within a whisker three times to snatching a goal, hitting the post twice in quick succession. But, a win is a win, and should stop some of the plums who have been going all doomy and gloomy about the lack of a win from whinging, at least until we play Portsmouth at the weekend. If Portsmouth are still around by the weekend.
But, let us not get ahead of ourselves. Just as the not winning doesn`t mean that we are destined for a poor season, a win doesn`t mean that we are going to storm the league and have our feet up by March. There are still things to iron out, but the fact that N`Gog scored on his first start of the summer is a bonus and it should give the players a bit of a lift as we head towards the opening weekend. No matter what part of the season you are at, if you are a player then you are going to be affected by results and a win, no matter who it is against, will give them a fillip of a sort.
Elsewhere, it would appear that the club are within touching distance of adding Benik Afobe and Carlos Sanchez to the squad. I gave my opinion on Afobe on Tuesday but if the club feel that he is the man to put pressure on SKD, N`Gog and Sordell then that is fine with me. OC has a hit and miss ratio with loans, not as good as some would make out, so it will be interesting to see how he does in the run up to the season, especially as the Team GB football squad are one win away from us not seeing Sordell at all during the pre season. As for Sanchez, if the former BEN believe that he is close to signing, then I`m happy to go along with that also. This has been a long drawn out affair, one that Bolton fans are painfully used to, and I`m not going to be jumping for any kind of joy until the writing is on the paper.
You may have noticed by now that the club website has changed. For ten years it seemed to be the same old home page, season after season, as the club, and other Football League clubs whether former or current, seemed to have signed a deal for their websites to all look the same. This afternoon, all that changed, and the website became a little brighter and a little less navigable. It appears to have more detail on it (we now know that Andy Kellett has been given a squad number), but it will take a while to get used to after all these years. The website has come on since it published a photo of Danny Welbeck when we loaned Daniel Sturridge, but still lags behind the websites of some non league clubs. And there is still no fan involvement, as the club still refuse to include a message board. However, all in all, I`m happy with it. He said, like he`s a computer whizz or something.
Right, just to remind you once again of the Fantasy League, which you can enter by looking at the article below this one on the home page. Yer man Al will be here tomorrow and I`ll be back on Saturday with a Portsmouth preview. Hopefully, they`ll still have some players to comment on.