A decent performance say some. More of the same say others.
Both opinions could be valid. Ultimately, Bolton lost again and struggled to convert chances as they were defeated 2-1 away at Leeds, but watching the game, there was some cause for optimism. Up until a freak effort from Ezgjan Alioski which didn’t make Remi Matthews look good at all, Bolton had their moments, with Mark Beevers just taking six minutes managing to cancel out Patrick Bamford’s penalty in the 16th minute.
After what proved Leeds’ winner, with did change, with the only real effort being Sammy Ameobi’s shot going wide. While it’s nice to turn around and say it was a good performance and all that, it’s now important the players back that up. We now go into kinder set of fixtures – a trip to Swansea followed by a home double against Millwall and Sheffield Wednesday, going into a trip to Wigan before the international break. We need a reasonable haul of points from those four fixtures.
A sad sight
One image that stuck out from yesterday was that of Erhun Oztumer, sat in the stand, on his own. It looked so sad and you can’t help but feel sorry for him. It’s a huge shame that Phil Parkinson has not been able to find some way of accommodating him more this season, and it seems unlikely that he ever will be accommodated, obviously bar a change in management.
Not exactly dirty Leeds
It was mad how the melee by the dugout was seemingly started by Mateusz Klich squirting a bottle of water. It’s hardly throwing a punch, is it? It’s also difficult to see how Phil Parkinson got sent off either. There’ll be no referee bashing here, because everyone always says officials hate their club, but how he managed to pick Parkinson out of over a dozen bodies confuses me.