What Lennon Thought - Burton Albion

Neil Lennon says his Bolton Wanderers team did everything but score, after exiting the Capital One Cup at the first round stage.

Wanderers were beaten by Burton Albion late on at Macron Stadium, after Matthew Palmer’s strike took a deflection to wrong-foot Ben Amos.

And after the game the manager said his side’s inability to hit the back of the net was ultimately what costs them the game.

“We pretty much beat ourselves out there,” Lennon said. “We were totally dominant in the game, so I’m not massively disappointed with the performance. 

“But that said, we’ve lost the game and gone out of the competition, so that’s very disappointing.

“Burton got a huge slice of luck with the goal, but we have to look at ourselves for the chances we’ve missed. We were careless and lacked composure in front of goal.

“There are still encouraging signs. I thought Mark Davies was superb in midfield and looked back to his old self and Dean Moxey did really well at full back.

“We didn’t make many changes to the side, because it was a competition we wanted to progress in. Prince had a bit of a knock but should be fine for the weekend. Darren Pratley has a bit of a ligament problem which we are monitoring, whilst Jay Spearing was suspended.

“We’re not overly concerned, because the way we played was very pleasing. We had 30 attempts at goal, so we must be doing something right.”



[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Maybe losing to Burton will turn out to be a blessing in disguise despite Neil's pre-match assertion that he wanted us to go on a long cup run?

I had us down as relegation fodder until the Derby game, but there were a few decent performances which upped my confidence in the team and Prince who upped my confidence in Neil's ability to spot a player.

Losing to Burton highlighted our lack of firepower whilst there's still time (if not money) left to do something about it and showed everyone how much we need to improve if we're going to hold our own in this division.

Maybe the improved defensive performances will give Garty some justification for loosening the purse strings to provide us with a more clinical attack? Or maybe it's just ensured that Tim Ream is on his way out to fund a new signing or two?
Whatever, I don't think doing nothing is an option as we won't survive without goals.