1979.... when the League Cup were a proper competitionAlways a poorly supported side when they play down here, Bolton have about 200 fans in the ground and their team shows 9 changes from their away win at West Ham at the weekend. I guess that sentimentality is one of the reasons why Kevin Davies is one of the two to survive. He’s had a good career and has never got the recognition he deserves. He of course had two spells with Saints, one for a season where his value went from £1m to £7.5m when we flogged him to Blackburn where “cows arse” and “banjo” were often heard in sentences along with his name. Rejoining Saints a year or so later to much fanfare and very little end product – it seemed he was on the way down but he’s been a brilliant player for Bolton and fair play to him. Emile Heskey has won approximately 60 England caps and Kevin Davies has none… says it all.
Sentimentality plays no part for us with ex-Bolton player Radhi Jaidi benched and replaced with Aaron Martin which is the only change from Saturday. We have a new signing but he’s not available due to red tape. Guillerme do Prado is an attacking central midfielder and he does by the name of ‘Guly’ which, in a headline writers dream, is pronounced ‘Gooley’ which is a very underused word these days. I wonder if he has a brother as you need a pair really and I also wonder who has explained it to him. John Toshack caused much hilarity when he went to manage in Turkey as apparently “Toshok” is the Turkish word for Guly. More importantly, who would he replace in the starting XI, Hammond or Schneiderlin. Maybe tonights game would be an audition.
It was the League Cup different seat lottery and so we ended up right in the middle of a row, which was amusing because we got there right on kick off. Some Kingsland old bugger who had to get up to let me get to my seat commented, ‘I hate people coming in late’. Cheeky bastard. I was at work in Brighton at 5.30 and lucky to get there at all. At 5.30, he was probably in his rest home on The Avenue, having his dinner served on one of those special trays.
Saints started well and the first near miss was a shot from a narrow angle, just over the bar from Barnard. Bolton were exactly as you expected them to be – quite direct and powerful but Saints were standing up well with Martin not looking overawed at the back. Pards had obviously had a word with Puncheon after Saturday as he was getting the ball in first time without cutting back onto his left foot. He was also looking fitter and finding more space and drew a decent save out of the keeper who had ginger hair and an orange kit The Northam End christened him The Wotsit and I’ll run with that.
We look ok up front but Sir Rickie is still not up to speed but maybe it’s the Premiership defenders making him look ever slower. He’s still a handful when the ball is there to be competed for but when the ball is on the floor then they always seem to be one step ahead of him. On the other hand, Lallana has so much skill and is repeatedly worrying the Bolton defenders with his ability to ghost into space and keep the ball under control in the exact opposite way to Paul Wotton in every respect. Barnard’s luck for the season shows no sign of changing as he again managed to get free and hammer in an excellent shot, only to see it brilliantly tipped away by the Wotsit. It’s no exaggeration to say that he could have 5 goals already this season but he has none.
The referee then showed himself to be an arse and for the rest of the first half it was ‘look at me, I’ve got a whistle and I’m an irritating shit’. The first incident came when Blake tangled with Harding and the linesman gave it our way. Blake had hold of the ball and threw it at the linesman. Not hard I grant you and he didn’t deserve to be sent off but he didn’t even get booked.
Just after the half hour, Bolton put together a class move as Ricketts totally skinned Lallana and Harding down the left and hung up a peach of a cross to where Davies slightly shoved Butterfield in the back before nodding down for Klasnic to score. Bolton celebrated like they’d just scored a goal in training – not bothered. Saints appeared bothered though and back they came with Lallana. He was worrying Bolton every time he got it, never more so than when he linked with Barnard and went down in the box. I didn’t think it was a penalty and none of the players really appealed which was enough for the Whistling Arse to book him for diving. We managed to waste a glorious chance to level right on half time as Lallana won the ball, to Barnard, to Puncheon, nice through ball back to Lallana in the inside left position 15 yards out, from where he curled it wide when he really should have done better.
Half time, 1-0 down but playing ok. As Bolton emerged from the tunnel and lined up, we had Matt Taylor over our side of the pitch. He’s the one I remember most from our infamous 4-1 defeat at Fratton Dump – giving our fans the large one. He’s got the obligatory footballer sleeve of tattoos. It looks ok on some players because it fits their image – Marco Materazzi for example is a hard bastard and the tats add to that image. Matt Taylor looks soft as shite so the tats just make him look like a twat. Though he’s an ex-Saint, Wayne Bridge falls into this category as well.
Anyway, I digress – back to the game and Aaron Martin is continuing his good game, giving Davies as good as he gets. He sometimes takes the old maxim of ‘play the way you’re facing’ a bit seriously which leads to him clearing it 50 yards the wrong way on occasions but the boy is doing well. We are competing well all over the pitch, with Captain Deano leading the way and smashing into whoever came near him.
Punch playing well today and combined well again with Barnard before again drilling in a low shot which was fumbled and recovered by the Wotsit. The Wotsit is at it again a few minutes later when Sir Rickie sets up Butterfield 25 yards out who hits a decent low strike which is flapped off for a corner. As I said, Punch is having a decent game but he gets the crowd howling at him with two diabolical set piece deliveries in two minutes which both hit the first man, somewhere near the knee.
Bolton nearly clinched it soon after when Harding made a right bollocks of a Taylor cross, nodding it into the path of Elmander who hooked goalwards where Superkelv made an excellent save to tip over. By this time, Saints had thrown on Connolly, Chamberlain and Heather Mills and it was Connolly who came closest with the Wotsit tipping over his goalbound drive from the edge of the box. The final chance which you always get, unfortunately fell to Jose Fonte who chipped up Harding’s pass before trying to volley goal of the season and shanking it horribly wide.
The final whistle blew and though we’d lost, the crowd applauded the effort and there was no booing at all. A really good effort by Saints but again, no breaks and an inspired goalkeeper. We were unlucky to lose but I also think that Bolton could have put a lot more in if they’d wanted to. There were many positive thing to come out of it, especially in the performances of Aaron Martin and Adam Lallana, one proving that they could be a regular in the Saints side this season and the other proving that he wouldn’t look out of place in the Premiership. As for Hammond v Schneiderlin – only one winner in my book and he’s the one with the name my Dad can pronounce. Yes Hammond lost possession a couple of times through being too ponderous but he got through a lot of work and put in some big hits and got the crowd chanting his name. Morgan was Morgan as usual, did some lovely things to make space for himself but invariably did very little where it mattered.
If you want to look for another positive then this was our lowest priority competition of the season. You see, it’s not just the Premiership clubs who don’t care about the League Cup as teams looking for promotion or worrying about relegation don’t give a toss about it either.
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