What Lennon Thought - Bristol City

Despite being left frustrated with a point against Bristol City, Neil Lennon was pleased with his players’ attitude.

Clear cut chances were few and far between, though Shola Ameobi saw a second half penalty saved by Bristol City goalkeeper Frank Fielding.

Gary Madine, introduced from the bench at the start of the second period, twice headed wide at the back post, but in end Bolton's search for a winner was fruitless.

“I thought it was a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde performance from us,” Lennon said in his post-match press conference. “I thought we were tentative and nervous in the first half, but really improved after half time.

“Bristol didn’t really cause us many problems in the second period and we created enough chances to win the game, none more so then the penalty. We’ve now missed two penalties at crucial times in games this season. 

“Shola tells me after the game it is the first penalty he’s missed in his career. He’s held his hands up after and admitted it was a poor penalty, but we’re not dwelling on that.

“What I did like about us was that when we missed the penalty we didn’t drop our heads. In fact, it probably went the other way and we responded pretty well.

“Did we look like a team out there? Yes. Did we look like a group of players willing to dig in and fight for each other? Yes. The fans got behind the players, which was great to see. The players have left everything on the pitch today and that’s all I can ask for. 

“Right now we just need that little bit of extra quality in the final third. We’ve kept five clean sheets now which is pretty good given our league position, but we’ve drawn all of those games 0-0.

“We need a spark, and if we can play like we did in the second half consistently then we’ll be fine. There are 30 games left to go and we’re confident we’ll soon be moving up the league table.

“We know where we are as a club right now. We’re all pulling in the same direction to work away with what we’ve got. Yes, there are financial problems, but we’re not using that as an excuse. We know we can do better on the pitch now.”

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Who cares any more. We were diabolical in the first half. Makes me weep to think how good we were jut 3 years ago, never mind 10 years ago.
 Best thing about the match to day was a loud mouth who sits behind me but is some times funny.
Todays comment was :Madine-you ooze nothing!
Just about summed up the team for the first 75 minutes

Fuck off Lennon. We were playing Bristol City, not Real Madrid.

He's coping with it a lot better than I expected. I always thought if we ever became this shit it'd just be one public meltdown after another. I actually thought he'd have walked by now but I suppose he's gotta stay and sort it out otherwise it won't look like he's taken us further and it won't do his CV any good.

Saying that I hope he doesn't fall into that same trap as Freedman, Coyle and Megson of saying "we're not far off now...little bit more this...little bit more that" etc. Clearly we're a considerable way off being as good as we should be.