Arsenal v Bolton (match thread)

[Bigzippy]

My two pennorth.

Our midfield looked very fecking light today. Not the first occasion that a Bolton MF looked light against Arsenal or any of the top 4. Great composure from Lee to set up Elmo, but Lee isn't yet looking like last season's player. Petrov hasn't started firing for me either, and I thought Holden had a quiet one today, so it was always going to be tough.

Defensively, we were all over the shop and it could have been worse but for some last ditch tackles. First goal was a soft one, but the two that followed where we had first, both CD's stood marking nothing, as the ball dropped over their heads, and an out of position Robinson for the third, were particularly worrysome. It almost looked like they were trying some bizarre zonal system.

Half time, we weren't that far off the pace.

Trying to judge Bogdan on the back of a 4-1 dicking is probably about a stupid as it comes - I'm not convinced that Jussi or Al Habs would have had any significant bearing on the result.

Great to see Elmo bag his 3rd of the season, Davo I thought had at best a mixed game and I thought he was marshalled pretty well and looked fairly ineffective for lots of it.

OC - Think there are games where we need an additional out and out tackler in MF and this was probably one of them.

I could agree with all but the bold, I watched a couple of replays and Robinson had to come out to pick up an unmarked man that The Moo had left.

I will also add Bogdan had some great saves and will one day be a great keeper, perspective is he is 22 and will improve.

Also like to add kit man should be ashamed Bodgan on his shirt today

[boltonboris]

How similar was the tackle to Joe Cole vs Arsenal? Didn't have a good view of it on my stream, only saw one crap replay.

It wasn't as bad

I'll finish that for you..

[Devon White]

I'll have my little say,
Bogdan is a very good keeper.
I didnt expect to get a point, however we were in the game and the ref as we have seen on numerous occasions decides its time to help out one of the ''big'' clubs. lee was fouled, cahill's tackle was not a sending off, i would like to think that a few of the arsenal players had been giving the verbles probably along the lines of you are not good enough to join arsenal, cahill decides that on the touchline he can dump the player to the ground and may be a booking, he didnt count on this ref.
move onto the next game,
oh yes
appeal cahills red,

Would you appeal it? It'd be like Blackadder?

"As this is an open and shut case, I'd like to bring a private prosecution against Little Bolton for wasting our time."

yes HRH i would appeal it,
other wise we could see many many more sendings off this season,
does anyone think vidic or gerard would get sent off in the same position at there respective home grounds,
we got well beat, atwell is not ready for the prem yet,
next game please

[TANGODANCER]

For feck's sake. Our season isn't decided by dint of how we get on away at Arsenal. feck me, there are some proper chods that claim to support BWFC these days.

say's you watching it on your computer

Explain.

Well, apparently, not having the time/being able to afford the trip down to Arsenal makes you somewhat less of a fan. Or possibly an idiotic fan, regardless of viewpoint or belief.

What distresses me a bit is we're all supposed to be Bolton fans, yet how quick some are to start looking for victims first time anything doesn't go to plan. I'm sure it wasn't in OC's plans to be playing Arsenal away with ten men and his best defender sent off. Most of us probably didn't realistically expect to get anything with eleven. Ten versus eleven and a half was a no brainer. Move on.

[Il Pirate]

For feck's sake. Our season isn't decided by dint of how we get on away at Arsenal. feck me, there are some proper chods that claim to support BWFC these days.

say's you watching it on your computer

Explain.

Well, apparently, not having the time/being able to afford the trip down to Arsenal makes you somewhat less of a fan. Or possibly an idiotic fan, regardless of viewpoint or belief.

What distresses me a bit is we're all supposed to be Bolton fans, yet how quick some are to start looking for victims first time anything doesn't go to plan. I'm sure it wasn't in OC's plans to be playing Arsenal away with ten men and his best defender sent off. Most of us probably didn't realistically expect to get anything with eleven. Ten versus eleven and a half was a no brainer. Move on.

Well said Tango. If we had messi and ronaldo in our side we probably would still have lost at Arsenal. Get over it, move on, we can beat Villa.

[Odelay]

ITT: Tossers.

We were 1-1 at HT and not looking too shabby considering it's fecking arsenal at home. We lost our best defender and to be fair, if there's a team you don't want to play a man down, it's arsenal as they're gonna run you ragged.

When did we all become West Ham fans?

[Hoboh]

Not being in the Sir Nut/CAPS camp of Kevin Davies is crap from the minute he fastens his boots they do have a point about his week in week out auto selection, quite clearly we need to try different options and I'm hoping our strong, very quick with an eye for goal loan signing is this. Who he plays with? Well Elmandy seems to be finally hitting some type of form or in front of a midfield 5 that will allow an out and out spoiler in the middle. SKD really is becoming to easy an option for a get out boot for the defence and Mandy ain't the type to pick up many knock downs hence loss of the ball.
Robinson is a cracker for a scrap type of game but anyone with pace will bury him alive, I hope our Spanish signing will address that once settled.
I still firmly believe that our defense coaching team is still not good enough for the Prem hence the number of times they get caught out of position, something that probs stopped Cahill from starting the last international game, not lack of talent but poor coaching!
CAPS you surely cannot believe what you typed hinting Taylor is a better player than Petrov? Its like Gerrard and Lampard and England seem to be doing ok without fat Frankie boy!

[Armchair Wanderer]

I had an AMAZING day today! First trip to the Emirates, lovely weather, good transport from where I live. I gotta say that Arsenal fans are spoilt.

First half was pretty even. They had a lot of forrays down to our goal, but we had some too. 1-1 was fair at HT.

Second half we didn't seem as bright and the ref seemed to be struggling. Same ref as the home game with Fulham and I thought he had a shocker then too. Bogdan was good in goal.

What's all this about West Ham?

[Gary the Enfield]

I knew this day was going to be strange. I woke up and checked my pockets to find I had £6.66 in my pocket. I got to Holloway Road to find my pub, Big Red was closed. On a Saturday lunchtime??!!!

A forced march to the Drayton Arms calmed my angst, until Everton scored 2 goals in the last 5 minutes to rescue a dead game against Newton Heath.

I then read in the programme that Arsenal were 3 goals away from 1000 goals in the premier league and knew our day was gone. I say this because I was at the game at Highbury when Ian Wright was 3 goals away from breaking Cliff Bastin's goal scoring record. We lost 4-1.

So to the game. I thought we pressed and harried well early on. Arsenal were poor to start but grew towards the end of the first half and 1-1 was fair. Arsenal started better than us second half but the deciding moment was the foul on Lee not given. Arsenal broke immediately and Cahill, posssibly annoyed at the lack of decisions against us, stopped their attack on the byline (not seen by me but reported) by going through the back of their man.

After that the result was inevitable. I stayed to the end, if only to avoid the jeers of my Arsenal supporting friends who always seem to make their way round to the away supporters end before I can get out, and thought we still played well if not effectively.

This game will not define our season. I do wish, however, we could break our Hoodoo at the corporate sterile shithole known as the Emirates Stadium

[CarlosHernandez]

It didn't sound like a 50 something thousand crowd through my telly... Did they have the crowd mics turned down? Or were the Arse support truly worried for the majority?

[H. Pedersen]

On the one hand, I thought that 4-1 was harsh on us. On the other hand, it could have been more if Arshavin could time his runs. He got caught offside about a half dozen times. Arsenal never really got out of second gear and I don't think we were ever going to get anything from that, regardless of the ridiculous red card.

It's true that this was Arsenal we're talking about and we can't expect much, but I hope Coyle makes some changes after this. I think he was expecting Petrov and Holden to play big roles this season but they just haven't gotten going, especially Petrov. Might need a rethink of tactics if we're going to get the best out of those two.

[CarlosHernandez]

I'd say Holden has been among our best in the first few this season, so a little harsh. Petrov has been sacrificed twice already after red cards, although he looked terrible first half yesterday.

[officer_dibble]

Having slept on it, whilst it wasn't in the Jussi stupidity stakes Cahill wants a slap for that yesterday. With clowns like Atwell around you can't be clumsy like that. I'm hoping the panel see sense and overturn it, but I am annoyed with Cahill for his naivety. He was also at fault for at least one goal. Made Fabios decision midweek look correct I guess.

[General Mannerheim]

Once again football gets in the way and spoils an otherwise great day. the Emirates is unbelievable, and the hospitality is like being on a cruise ship. obviously went completely tits up when Cahill got sent off, and we were asked to watch the rest of the match indoors, which was ok because drinks were complimentary, except thats when i went on the rum and the rest of the day is a blur!

[thebish]

Most of us probably didn't realistically expect to get anything with eleven.

I thought you said...

No reason at all why we shouldn't just get amongst them and win. None.

[hisroyalgingerness]

Once again football gets in the way and spoils an otherwise great day. the Emirates is unbelievable, and the hospitality is like being on a cruise ship. obviously went completely tits up when Cahill got sent off, and we were asked to watch the rest of the match indoors, which was ok because drinks were complimentary, except thats when i went on the rum and the rest of the day is a blur!

Love the hospitality there, aye. I haven't been invited back though for a bit. The over-exuberant penalty claim in the 90th minute few year back, with Frank McLintoch looking on bemused put paid to that

[TKIZ!]

Once again football gets in the way and spoils an otherwise great day. the Emirates is unbelievable, and the hospitality is like being on a cruise ship. obviously went completely tits up when Cahill got sent off, and we were asked to watch the rest of the match indoors, which was ok because drinks were complimentary, except thats when i went on the rum and the rest of the day is a blur!

Love the hospitality there, aye. I haven't been invited back though for a bit. The over-exuberant penalty claim in the 90th minute few year back, with Frank McLintoch looking on bemused put paid to that

[Bruce Rioja]

Once again football gets in the way and spoils an otherwise great day. the Emirates is unbelievable, and the hospitality is like being on a cruise ship. obviously went completely tits up when Cahill got sent off, and we were asked to watch the rest of the match indoors, which was ok because drinks were complimentary, except thats when i went on the rum and the rest of the day is a blur!

Love the hospitality there, aye. I haven't been invited back though for a bit. The over-exuberant penalty claim in the 90th minute few year back, with Frank McLintoch looking on bemused put paid to that

Perhaps we could run a view-from-the-corporate-hospitality-area type of thing. I'm on one at Villa. Perhaps Lonestar could also write something similar from the pub, if he's not too busy being an angry wanker?!

[Gaz Tomorrow]

there's no way we would have suffered that scoreline had we not had to reshuffle following a sending off

Woteva

I was resonably impressed with Bogdan to be honest. What could be more daunting than your first premiership start away to Arsenal at 22?? The defence should have been even more on their guard with an inexperienced keeper. Yes there were some cockups but the defence didn't help.

[officer_dibble]

there's no way we would have suffered that scoreline had we not had to reshuffle following a sending off

Woteva

I was resonably impressed with Bogdan to be honest. What could be more daunting than your first premiership start away to Arsenal at 22?? The defence should have been even more on their guard with an inexperienced keeper. Yes there were some cockups but the defence didn't help.

I think you got the wrong sending off in your quote mate....

Mind you they are pretty common these days...so an easy mistake.