Meanwhile, Riga was outspoken about the situation at Levante and eventually won the right to a free transfer. He chose Bolton and on September 13th his new team visited Craven Cottage to play Roy Hodgson’s Fulham team that had also been revamped during the summer. To our disappointment Riga didn’t make the starting line-up, but Nigerian international Danny Shittu, a summer capture from Watford did, although it was not a match he will remember fondly.

Hungarian international Zoltán Gera had the first chance with just a minute gone from Jimmy Bullard’s corner, but Gera couldn’t keep his shot down. Fulham had the best of the early exchanges, which included Andy Johnson’s header over the bar from Gera’s cross. Fulham had the ball in the net after ten minutes after former West Ham striker Bobby Zamora flicked the ball over Bolton’s keeper, Jussi Jääskeläinen, into the unguarded net, but referee Steve Tanner disallowed it for a foul on the keeper. Four minutes later Bolton’s defence botched their attempt to clear Zamora’s cross and Jlloyd Samuel’s header teed it up nicely for Gera to beat Jääskeläinen and give Fulham a deserved lead.

It took about ten minutes for Bolton to recover from the shock with Kevin Davies going close twice in two minutes. Fulham’s new keeper Mark Schwarzer was a tad fortunate to see Davies’ first effort loop over him onto the top of the net and Ricardo Gardner was lively on the left wing until an awkward fall almost ended his participation. Strangely Bolton’s black players got stick from the crowd for no apparent reason, but that would change later. Bolton’s defence was far from impressive, yet Fulham’s finishing was profligate as Zamora wasted a golden opportunity with a tame finish despite Bolton’s defence exposing Jääskeläinen badly. With just under ten minutes of the half remaining Johnson broke clear on the right flank and crossed superbly for Zamora. The move deserved a goal and but for the athleticism of Jääskeläinen, Zamora would have doubled Fulham’s advantage. It was just as well for Bolton that their keeper was in inspired form, as his defence gave him every opportunity to shine to the fury of Megson. With less than five minutes remaining in the first half a long ball found Zamora on the left flank with a lot to do. His magnificent drag-back outwitted both Shittu and Gavin McCann who was trying to cover his colleague’s poor outing to that point. Zamora took full advantage of the space he won for himself and curled an unstoppable twenty-two yard effort into the top corner that even the magnificent Jääskeläinen could do nothing but admire along with the almost 24000 strong crowd. There was still time for Johnson to go down in the penalty area, but find Tanner in no mood to give a penalty on the former Everton striker’s home début for the West London club. The half-time whistle went with Fulham fully deserving their 2-0 lead. Riga had not had an opportunity to impress his new manager, let alone further his international ambitions.