I hate to say it, but Bolton's season is all but over now. In recent years, it's become something of a tradition that Charlton Athletic would see their season trail off in the final third of the season, therefore ending any dreams of Europe they may have harboured. This year, with Charlton having long been out of the race for Europe, it seems that it's been our turn to fall short.
To me, it seems that the main reason for this slip-up is burn-out. The extra ammount of matches that we've had this season have resulted in us looking likely to miss out on a second consecutive year in Europe. This was clearly evident yesterday at Anfield.
Liverpool are one of the 'big' teams, without a doubt. As a rule, Bolton raise their game for the big teams - when was the last time that any three from Arsenal, Chelsea, Man United and Liverpool did the double over us all in the same season? We make life hard for them, and they genuinely don't enjoy playing us. For the first 45 minutes yesterday, this looked again to be the case. But after the break, it was a different Bolton side that came out. We were poor, and didn't ever look like grabbing an equaliser that we wouldn't have deserved.
It wasn't a classic, by any means. Liverpool were more content with keeping us from equalising than with increasing their lead. Yet they still looked more likely to grab a second than we did grabbing an equaliser. And yet, it could have been so much more different. Had Stelios taken his chance properly within the opening ten minutes, the match could have turned out much more different. Had we kept concentration right through to half-time, who knows what may have been? (Just like in Marseille...)
The disappointing thing for me yesterday, though, was how average we looked. Not one of the starting eleven looked capable of changing the match yesterday. Never have I seen Kevin Davies dominated in his physical battles as much as Hyppia did to him yesterday. Kevin Nolan and Stelios have both looked off the boil in recent weeks. Both started brightly, but you would have been forgiven for thinking that Nolan had been taken off along with Stelios for the impression he had on the game afterwards. On a whole, the whole team's passing was poor. The only people who I'd say could reasonably claim to have had a better than average game are Jussi and Bruno.
On the plus side, great to see Matt Jansen and Ivan Campo making their returns. In my opinion, Jansen was have been Bolton's best player, which really says something about the performance of the starting XI.
On the down side...Chelsea next. And we're all but out of the European race. Although not impossible - if Blackburn lose to Chelsea and Liverpool, combined with a couple of wins for us, we're back in it - it's a long shot, especially for a side who hasn't won away since December.
Finally, I'll mention another high point of yesterday. Our away support has been critisised in recent weeks, but I'll say that we were fantastic yesterday, and as I was amongst them, I should know. Although admittedly we died out in the second half, every last one of us could see how poor our performance was becoming. For the better part of an hour though, we were fantastic. For a first-timer at Anfield, I was expecting the Kop to be one loud voice - not expecting Bolton fans to be singing "It's just like being at church" at them. Just like at Wigan this year in the Carling Cup, the team has let down a superb set of fans with a bad, bad performance.