On my drive across the Pennines I caught the wonderful I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue on the radio for the first time since the death of the great Humph. Jack Dee had a hard job filling in for the deceased Master, but the programme was familiarly hilarious with such gems as the suggested message left on Napoleon’s answer phone, ‘Hi, Josephine here, er, is tonight ok?’. I had a sneaking feeling that the afternoon would go downhill from there. It did.
It was a cold afternoon and the rain teemed down as the game began. As I anticipated Mego had reverted to type in his team selection following the mauling at Villa Park and the seemingly out of favour McCann was recalled in a basically defensive selection comprising Jussi, Ricketts, Cahill, O’Brien, Samuel, Taylor, Muamba, McCann, Gardner, Elmander, Davies. Zac Knight was the sacrifice offered to atone for the Villa result; who’d have thought the Reebok faithful would applaud the return of Andy O’brien. The Wunderkind from Korea also found himself relegated to the bench.
I haven’t used any punctuation to indicate the formation as I remain unclear whether we were playing 4-4-3 or 4-4-2. Gardner appeared to have central midfield as his day job while moonlighting on the left wing. Taylor was definitely on the right. How many times does he have to play there before Mego realises it isn’t a good idea.So, how to describe the ensuing shambles? I’ve used all the adjectives so many times before: shambolic, inept, awful, incompetent and so on. Just putting ‘very’ in front of them hardly seems adequate. The last few home games had led me to believe that things were improving but this was as bad, nay, worse, than ever. It certainly never felt like a local derby. Bolton v Blackburn, a half full stadium, no biting tackles, not even Big Sam on the touchline. It was a parody.
After twenty mediocre minutes there was an episode that illustrated why we can’t keep a clean sheet. O’brien, Samuel, Cahill and Jaaskelainen all blundered, allowing David Dunn to head towards an open goal. Cahill did recover and hook the ball clear but the way the diminutive Dunn knocked the England hopeful off the ball made me fear for our chances in South Africa.
At the other end, and equally bizarre in a different way, Ricardo Gardner tried to curl a shot into the top corner with his right foot after a pass from Davies. Unlikely as that seems, he wasn’t far away.
On the hour the game took a decisive turn. Bolton won a free kick on the edge of the box and Taylor struck it hard and low. The shot was deflected and thwacked against the bar. From the resulting scramble Robinson threw the ball to Di Santo. He fed Roberts who in turn fed Dunn and the little fellow curved the ball past Jussi for the first goal. There had been little to choose between two bad teams up to this point, and if Taylor’s free kick had gone in the game might have been different.
As it was, the only other happenings of note in a miserable forty five minutes were two misses by Taylor. One came from a well directed cross by McCann when the ball struck his right shin and the other was a misdirected header from a good position.
The goal certainly bucked Blackburn up and after the interval they were much the better team and looked much the more likely to score. Jussi made a couple of decent saves and McCann saved the day on two occasions with headers off the line. It really seemed that Mego was oblivious to the fact that we were getting beat and being outplayed but at last, with just twenty minutes left, he made three substitutions. First, Klasnic replaced Elmander, an obviously needed change that should have been made sooner then, Gardner and McCann gave way to Mark Davies and Chung-Yong Lee. Though the newcomers weren’t particularly prominent, we had our best spell of the game following the changes. We put Rovers under sustained pressure for the first time and a goal seemed a distinct possibility.
And sure enough it came. And it was scored by a Bolton player. Blackburn cleared their lines with a long ball out of defence, vaguely in the direction of McCarthy. Ricketts stretched to cut it out and directed his header towards Jussi, or at least to where Jussi ought to have been. But for some reason the goalkeeper had raced from his line and was stood behind Ricketts, well outside the penalty area. The ball bounced slowly into the net while the Bolton faithful watched in disbelief. It was an awful blunder to cap an awful display. The Wanderers fight back collapsed like a popped balloon and the game was over. There was just time for Klasnic to seize on a slack bit of Blackburn defending, round Robinson, and direct a shot towards goal, only for Jacobsen to affect an impressive cover save. Then it was over and we could all go home. Many, of course, had already gone.
I’ve heard this described, by more than one person, as the worst Bolton display ever. It wasn’t but I’ve been watching the Wanderers for a long time. I wouldn’t argue that it wasn’t in the worst ten. Yet again, there was a lack of organisation, a lack of plan, a lack of individual skill, and a lack of teamwork. The defence seems to be taking the blame at the moment as we are leaking goals, and they are bad. But we’ve only scored one in the last four games, so the attack is no better. The only players to find scoring positions were Gardner and Taylor. Neither took advantage, indeed neither played well, but they at least gave themselves a chance. I don’t recall either Davies or Elmander doing the same thing just once. Klasnic, of course, in his twenty minutes, came the nearest to registering a Bolton goal.
As for the own goal, it seems that many blame Ricketts. I can only think they are the same people that can’t forgive Ricketts for replacing Steinsson and I agree that it’s hard to see why Ricketts was bought. But the own goal was Jussi’s fault, no matter how much he ranted raved at the scorer.
Some of the flack that Bolton might have taken was diverted by Wigan’s thrashing at Spurs. However, if we had been playing a team of the calibre of Tottenham we might have shipped nine goals too. We were outplayed, and well beaten, by a very ordinary side. Save for David Dunn, who was outstanding, their players were no better than ours.
As for what is to be done, I am a firm believer in placing any credit or blame on the manager. He brings in the players, he selects the team, he decides the tactics, he coaches individuals. He carries the can. I heard the chairman on the radio this morning saying that he is not one to press the panic button. It would be interesting to hear Sammy Lee’s reaction to that comment but it seems that Mego is not going to be sacked this week.
Perhaps, after watching a video of the game he will resign and echo my opening paragraph, 'I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue'.
