Bolton somehow nicked a 1-1 draw at home to Bristol Rovers last night in a game they probably didn’t deserve anything from.
Despite an illness bug putting quite a few players’ appearances in doubt, Keith Hill was able to name pretty much the same side that turned out against Portsmouth, with Daryl Murphy also coming back into the fold after his compassionate leave.
The sickness must have still affected some of the players though, as the performance was very poor, with the away side not being much better themselves. Remi Matthews kept us in it during the first half, making two very good saves, one after the defence decided that it was too much effort to try and close the shot down in the first place.
Josh Emmanuel did put one decent delivery in the first half but being one of the stricken players, with withdrawn at the break as Joe Dodoo came on.
The second half wasn’t much better, a poor, disjointed team performance played in front of a quiet crowd on a cold night, overseen by a poor referee who blew his whistle far too much. Eventually Bristol Rovers took advantage as Jonson Clarke-Harris opened the scoring after turning in a low ball across.
Will Buckley, coming on for his third Bolton ‘debut’ would only last four minutes as his leg was promptly fractured. It’s obviously not his fault but it could well be the most Will Buckley thing you could imagine. On a night where one or two fans in the North Stand at least were complaining that we were trying to be a bit too clever, it would be a simple corner that yielded the equaliser. A good delivery was planted on the head of Daryl Murphy who levelled things up.
From there, especially with eight minutes of injury time, there might have been a window to go and win the game, but it rarely looked as if that would happen.