Another Bolton loss, this one a bit of an extra kick in the balls being a defeat to Tranmere. Once it’s safe to do so I’m sure they’ll have their victory parade for doing the double over us for the first time ever.
Firstly, let’s address the referee, because Neil Hair was useless. Two big decisions incorrectly went against us, firstly, Manny Monthe should have been sent off for a denial of a goalscoring opportunity. There’s the obvious joke about most of our players not having the finishing ability to ever qualify for a decent goalscoring opportunity, but Antoni Sarcevic was clear and even though he was on a yellow, it should have been a straight red. Not a foul was given. It was made all the more annoying that Ryan Delaney’s second yellow came for something that happened numerous times over the course of the afternoon. Then there was the penalty, where he gave the corner initially before crumbling under the pressure. Or Mike Dean using the shining to communicate with him.
That’s not to excuse the fact that again, we didn’t bother playing until we went behind, in fact we had to go two down to see a reaction today. Danny Lloyd and James Vaughan (from the aforementioned penalty) score early on in each half and it would take until the 66th minute for us to get on the scoresheet, Nathan Delfouneso, not long off the bench, moved it across to Eoin Doyle, who crossed low for Sarcevic to score what was a good goal.
Arthur Gnahoua, again effective off the bench, somehow failed to take a chance he really shouldn’t have missed, while Scott Davies saved from Alex Baptiste late on. But we remain winless, or even to have led a game, since 15th December. And if you’re giving teams a one, two, or even a three goal head start, you’ll always make life hard for yourself.
Is Ian Evatt still doing the Supporters’ Trust AGM this week? Even on Zoom, I’m sure there’s a few tough questions that could be asked there.