Thought we were good in the first half and probably edged it. Bolton had the ball lots but did virtually nothing with it, and we did our usual trick of nicking it frequently in midfield and breaking. Unfortunately, our final third quality was very poor tonight. Then done on the break for their goal just before half time, which is somewhat ironic considering our style of play!
Felt that knocked the stuffing out of us a bit and Bolton had the better of the second half right up until the Maddison red. From there it was pretty much all us barring the last few minutes.
Wildig got involved well tonight and made good runs but was a bit off the pace with his passing. Stockton had an ok performance but spurned a couple of decent openings. Was pretty unimpressed with O'Sullivan who I thought had a poor one, but then took some brilliant corners towards the end and provided the assist. And on that, why the hell hasn't he been on corners all season!? Far better than Wildig's and Phillips's.
Denny had a bit of a disaster. Did not cope at all well with being the holding midfield player and was sniffed out by Bolton pretty quickly. Lost the ball several times but generally managed to get away with it by committing some handy fouls, which was pretty smart. In hindsight, perhaps Toums would have been a better option there with Wildig/Lyons flanking.
And on that, some positives! Really good finally seeing Lyons a bit more on the ball. Thought he got stuck in and showed for the ball well, and it was great timing from DA to throw the subs on for the corner to throw the Bolton markers. Thought McAlinden made an impact too in stretching the defence and making good runs. Would still like to see a bit more of him. CMG was positive but got targeted more in the second half which seemed to dim him slightly.
Overall though, should be beating teams like Bolton