RSS
|
Goals from Gary Speed and Ricardo Vaz Te bring Wanderers from behind to clinch victory over 10-man Colchester at Layer Road. Wanderers were behind within the first six minutes, when former Charlton striker Kevin Lisbie put the ball in the net. A corner was floated into the Bolton area, and with hesitant defending and a lack of communication between goalkeeper and defender, Lisbie poked the ball home to score on his Colchester debut. But it was less than three minutes before the visitors were back in the game. Ricardo Vaz Te went on a surging run into the area and was upended by Colchester defender Mark Yeates, giving the Trotters a penalty which Gary Speed struck past Dean Gerken to equalise for the Wanderers. Then, just two minutes later, good one touch football from Gary Speed, Nicolas Anelka and Kevin Davies found Vaz Te who slotted home his fourth goal of pre-season to give Bolton the lead. The game continued to be an end-to-end affair, with The U's immediately on the attack, with Yeates forcing Al-Habsi into a good save on his first, first team start for the club. Gavin McCann should have extended Wanderers' lead in the 25th minute, when Gerken in the Colchester goal spilled a cross straight into the path of the former Villa star, but he hit his shot over the bar. The hosts were then reduced to ten men just a minute later when Clive Platt was shown a straight red card, which was apprently for striking Bolton defender Lubomir Michalik with an elbow. This left the Colchester fans and players furious and even the Bolton players offered their sympathy for the dismissed Platt. The dismissal disrupted the flow of the game with Colchester holding a tight backline and sitting back, forcing Wanderers to come at them. At the break, Sammy Lee made four substitutions, which were followed by another three just ten minutes later. James Sinclair, Jlloyd Samuel, Kevin Nolan, Abdoulaye Meite, Gary Speed, Gavin McCann and Ricardo Vaz Te were replaced by Ivan Campo, Scott Jamieson, Danny Guthrie, Nicky Hunt, Abdoulaye Faye, Mikel Alonso and El-Hadji Diouf. Nicolas Anelka had a chance to wrap the game up on the hour, following good approach work from El-Hadji Diouf, Anelka's shot was well saved by Gerken. To compensate for the dismissal of Platt earlier in the game, Sammy Lee made the choice to play the final 25 minutes with ten men to make the game an even contest. He brought Lubomir Michalik off the field without replacing him, a sign of good sportsmanship from the Bolton manager. Kemal Izzet tried a long-range curler with ten minutes remaining, but Al-Habsi made a comfortable save. A minute later, Lee replaced Hunt with Zoltan Harsanyi, and the Slovakian had an immediate chance to score, having found himself unmarked on the end of an El-Hadji Diouf free-kick, but he placed his header wide of the target. Bolton held on to claim the victory, and complete their pre-season with five victories, one draw and two defeats, against Lyon and Hibernian respectively. They can now look forward to next week's Premier League opener, which sees Sam Allardyce return to the club with his Newcastle United side. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
