Bolton 1-1 Portsmouth

Ten Bobsworth wrote:
There was another where Santos was quite clearly rugby-tackled at a corner right in front of the ref. We've had some useless refs but this one was right up there with the most useless from start to finish.

Have to agree with regard to the ref. We get more than our fair share of these plonkers. 
At least Maurice Fussey was funny.

We played very well, just couldnt finish our chances. Seems to be the strory of the season despite us scoring 79 league goals, 2nd most in the league, just one goal behind Peterborough.

Automatic Promotion isnt quite over yet, need Cambridge to get a results against Derby! Lets hope Kachunga helps the Bolton cause.

Thought the ref was random but he did keep his cards in his pocket for the most part, which I prefer.
Good performance and if we'd played with that level of effort and focus throughout the season we'd be champions, but we lost all chance of that when we threw away a load of points against teams nowhere near as good as Portsmouth. 
We should never have been in the position where we had to beat the champions.

wanderlust wrote:Thought the ref was random but he did keep his cards in his pocket for the most part, which I prefer.
Good performance and if we'd played with that level of effort and focus throughout the season we'd be champions, but we lost all chance of that when we threw away a load of points against teams nowhere near as good as Portsmouth. 
We should never have been in the position where we had to beat the champions.

We also had players out with injuries and suspensions too.

Shit happens to all teams over a season and lets not forget we are where we are because we've spent more than most clubs in our league on players (and no doubt wages too) in the last season or two.

There is really three teams that are better than the rest this season (there were three teams better than the rest also last season to) and if nothing bad falls against us, we should still get promoted via the play-offs.

Obviously automatic promotion is what any team wants (more so than being the champions - you only desire being the champions after knowing you've clinched, or almost certainly will, promotion - but going up via the play-offs is certainly not beyond us against any of the other teams we may have to face - and Derby are not promoted just yet anyway - they may still slip up - hopefully!

BarrygoestoBolton wrote:I agree with you, Wanderlust, but we did suffer from poor refereeing again. 
I suppose every teams’ supporters think that, and I know it’s difficult to be objective, but we had two good shouts for a penalty towards the end. One where the defender brought JC down and another where the defender controlled the ball with his hand. How some of the Portsmouth players weren’t carded for either bad fouls or time wasting is beyond me. 
But, fundamentally, we failed to score a second goal despite dominating.

Could be argued that ref was lenient when Jones hauled Yengi down in the box but the ref wasn't the problem - the problem was a) not winning winnable games earlier in the season, b) finding ourselves in this position as a result of a) and c) not being ruthless enough when we had the chance. But ultimately it just wasn't our day - as happens in football - and the ball just didn't drop for us often enough to get the goal(s) we needed.
Still think we played really well, but we should have been out of sight way before we played the champions.
We can still get promoted though and we shouldn't lose sight of that.

We didn’t lose the autos here. It was done weeks ago. 

I actually like Jerome more than JDB. JDB has been bang average all year and has cost us points. 

If Charles came back 2 weeks ago I think we’d be 4 or 5 clear of Derby now.