Strange game I felt - Bolton had a lot of method to their play, they were very well drilled and seemed to have good movement and tempo. They were pretty good at getting the ball out from the back to about half way but after doing the hard bit quite well they seemed to be a bit hesitant and sometimes over play rather than take positive risks in the final third. While we in complete contrast had virtually zero link up play in midfield and played long diagonal balls constantly often losing it but when we got the ball in their final third really went for it. Despite the fact we were always doing 50-50 balls and constantly turning over posession I think we looked fitter, more physical and battled harder to pick up lose balls so were the better side despite us not playing much football compared to them.
It was like they had composure but too much patients and lacked intensity while we had no patients and were all intensity and just kept trying to rush or force the issue. It was like a complete styles clash where both sides were too far at either end of the scale and could've done with a bit more of each others approach. They were missing some of our aggression and directness and we were missing some of their patients and method.
In the first few games I thought the lack of the def mids getting involved in the link up play and constant long balls were a sign of us being disjointed as we gel. But i keep seeing the 2 def mids tuck inside and create the space for the centre half (mostly Watts) to pump long diagonal balls so many times now think it must be a deliberate tactic. I don't think it's very effective to be honest and dont think it suits our players.
At points in the past games after struggling with this style we adjust to get the def mids picking up the ball from the defenders and linking up with the attacking mids we always look much better. We did the same in preseason and against Sunderland, Rotherham and Wycombe and in the last 10 mins or so today. Power stopped tucking in and allowing Watts the space to go long and started moving into the space himself to collect the ball and Lang and Asgaard started to drop deeper to linking up - we started to look so much more dangerous and created more openings in the final few mins doing more passing than we did in the previous 80 odd mins mostly looked to go long.
I'm never against having the option to mix it up and go long occasionally but at the moment I think we are over doing it and making our lives harder trying to play that way. I get the impression it's us trying to adopt a style to focus on playing through Wyke (even though he wasn't on tonight) like we did when Moore first arrived. With Moore we were so keen to utilise him as a target man it kind of disrupted everything else we did. We eventually toned it down and stopped exclusively looking for Moore every time and found a balance between going direct to him and playing through midfield and everything started to click. I think we are maybe are going through a similar process now.
Results this season have been pretty good but I still don't think we've played that well for extended periods - just patches. But again tonight as we have in other games; when we have upped our game just a little you can see us start to really make the opposition sweat and us start to dominate. It is still obviously a work in progress but it again hints at what we can do if we start to click.
I don't think we've ever had a penalty shoot out at the DW so that was quite exciting. Nice to see Jamie Jones get a moment of glory - he's certainly not the best keeper but he's a club man through and through and had the bottle to step up and take a blistering penalty. Loved to see Power taking responsibility and showing leadership on the penalties and leading by example. For any faults Max has he can never be accused of hiding or not having bottle - I have no issue with Darikwa being captain but Power really does feel like the captain.
It's always nice to beat Bolton and advance in the cup, but we all know if we lost we'd have said 'focus on the league' or 'we don't need distractions'. However when we are playing the second string it's not really going to impact the first team negatively and it's good to keep those players sharp and match fit in competitive games. Also it continues to build momentum, confidence and hopefully helps Richardson learn and evolve his apprpach a little more that can help us to be better in league games. There seems to be a genuinely good togetherness and team spirit in the camp which is really encouraging for such a new group. Not sure how we've done that so quickly but I think that's probably something that is going to be a contributing factor in our good start to the season.
Not the prettiest performance but job done and it was a great atmosphere. Hopefully we can get a good draw at home and get a bit of a cup run going.
