It was my first visit to the Reebok and continued my record of not seeing us win away since Wrexham in 2002, as we lost 3-2.

With 11 first team players out and zero creativity in the team it was never going to be a classic game for the purist, but by the half hour mark thanks to some woeful defending Bolton were 2 up.  Rather than cheering their team on, the 5 or so Bolton fans in the ground by us decided to celebrate at us with their very random chants of ‘Lancashire is wonderful’, somehow forgetting that they’ve not been in Lancashire since 1974 when Liverpool were also in it.

With no creativity from midfield there was only going to be one way we’d get back into this, and it was from a moment of brilliance from Saha who struck the ball sublimely from outside the box as we pulled it back to 2-1 going into half time.

At half time the only talk I heard was how we’re going to win, and 10 minutes into the second half the team seemed to justify the optimism as another fine assist from Neill gave Fellaini the chance to level the score with a good strike from just inside the box.  Unfortunately after that despite some good one touch football and carving up a counter attack for Gosling we simply didn’t produce enough urgency.  On the 80th minute Heitinga went down and we were without 12 first teamers, and five minutes later Bolton took advantage with a poorly defended late strike.

There were a couple of positives to take, Neill’s debut was possibly the best of our new signings this season and Saha continued his fine form.  But with defending like that we’re going to be ripped apart by Spurs and Villa.

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