West Ham 1-3 Bolton

By: Ted | October 7th, 2008

This was truly a taste of our own medicine. Today’s game was a carbon copy of last week’s win at Fulham, for the other team that is. Two goalkeeping errors in the first half gifted the away team victory, as was the case at Craven Cottage the last time out. This side has been becoming like the West Ham of old, strong at home and weaker away. The key being that after finally chalking up an away win, we throw away our good home form. The first goal came after Green spilled a hopeless punt into the box that Davies put away. The second was when he could only deflect a shot into the bath of Cahill to score Bolton’s second in the space of about 3 minutes. Cole kept up his good scoring record to give us a chance of getting a goal, and with Bellamy coming off the bench it looked like we might get the equalizer, and who knows, maybe the win. As time was ticking away though it was Bolton that scored, with Taylor scoring the kind of long shot that only he can, ruining our chance to go third in the table and continue a very good start to the season. Today’s game just highlighted how important it is to get that first goal. The league is now essentially a counter attacking one due to all the pressure and money involved. Bolton got it, we lost. Thank god there was some good news on the day, Hull beat that other London team to give them their worst start to a season for about a century. My star players were:

Neill: Not at fault for any of the goals and looked comfortable due to the lack of pace attacking him. Underwhelming choice but he should get some credit for settling in well to his new position.

Behrami: Ran all day, found claret and blue shirts unlike many other players and actually had some chances at goal, more than most on the day.

Ilunga: Strong and was rarely threatened by Bolton. Got forward really well and was one of our best attacking threats, obviously not a good sign considering he’s a defender. The Nani influence is starting to show between him and Behrami, with both looking to be good buys so far, and good value too.