Bolton have lost back to back matches for the first time this season, after the Rotherham defeat we went down 1-0 at Sunderland on Saturday.
It was a case of Sunderland’s full backs getting forward as Dennis Cirkin set up a cross and Carl Winchester exposed some soft defending to turn it in for the only goal of the game. We had chances of our own though, and had we finished them, especially that late George Johnston one, it could have easily been a different result,
Where does this leave us then? Well, ninth, but the truth is we’re still in a massively congested part of the table, with three points separating fifth to 17th. What the last couple of games might have done is, in playing reasonably well but losing to two teams who will hope to be up there at the end of the season, is that we might be a bit short in terms of a team that has the ability to go up.
On the other hand, quite a few of these expected goals tables have us in and around the top three of table. Basically this takes in to account the quality of chances we’re creating, and some would say eventually things will even out and the goals will come as long as we continue creating chances. Although you could flip that and say the quality of the finishing needs to improve.
“He’s not going to shy away and he’s confident and we are confident about him that he will get goals this season”, said George Johnston to the Bolton News, while Ian Evatt said, “Eoin is having a hard time but I will back him. He is a proven goal-scorer and he will take those chances on another day.”
Basically, we’re playing well, Cambridge was probably the last league game where the manager seemed really disappointed with the performance. We just need to be better in both boxes, and a win in one of our next couple of games will set us up nicely.