West Ham goalkeeper Robert Green was responsible for both of Bolton’s first half goals at the Boleyn Ground on October 5^th. “It frustrates, but as I said to the players, we need to improve certain things,” said their manager Gianfranco Zola. “We need to improve the mentality; we need to improve sometimes. You have to react to that.” It had an immediate impact on Carlton Cole whose effort from the edge of Bolton’s penalty area was superbly tipped over the bar by Bolton’s keeper Jussi Jääskeläinen. Green could only watch in admiration and hope that his team-mates could recover the situation and he would get the opportunity to redeem himself too. West Ham supporters were getting frustrated with Cole and his perceived lack of effort. Some demanded that he be substituted, but Zola had other ideas. Hérita Ilunga made way for Craig Bellamy after fifty-four minutes. The Congolese defender left the pitch with a strange match statistic to his name. Despite only playing for forty-nine minutes (he was getting treatment for five) Ilunga racked up six fouls, double that of Bolton’s worst miscreant Gavin McCann.

“We tried to find a solution but, there were too many bodies around there,” said Zola. “The only way to get around there was to try to find space on the flanks.” With just over twenty minutes remaining Cole made a match of it, as Mathew Etherington’s cross was headed onto to him by Mathew Upson and Cole’s header from close range went in off the bar. The Hammers chased an equaliser that would have preserved Zola’s unbeaten record. “[Valon] Behrami had a great shot, but it’s not easy, said Zola. “We could have scored, but it didn’t happen. I understand. I know the situation, but I’m totally confident we’re going to get stronger mentally.”

The equaliser never came and Matt Taylor came on to replace Johan Elmander with under twenty minutes left and Fabrice Muamba was jeered as he was substituted after eighty minutes for taking his time to leave the pitch. Joey O’Brien replaced him and five minutes later the killer blow was delivered from long range by Matt Taylor. “He’s got a great strike and engine on him,” said his manager Gary Megson. “It was nice for him as well; you fancy Matthew Taylor to score because you’ve seen him do it before and he will score from close in because he will get in there. That’s one of the things that we brought him into the club for.”

Green stood no chance as Taylor’s thirty-five yard free-kick flew in. “Probably nobody was expecting him to take a free-kick like this,” said Zola. “He’s been very good. The game was very strange; it was lost in those few minutes, so you have to accept that sometimes those minutes can be on your side, but sometimes they can be against you and it happened today.” Zola took his first defeat as a manager in the Premiership philosophically. “It is painful as a footballer,” he said; “it is even more as a manager, but it is more painful to lose when you think you didn’t deserve to win.” Zola didn’t think that his team deserved to lose. “Every time I lost a game like this I was really quick to react and come back from it and I’m sure they will do the same,” he said.

Meanwhile, Megson welcomed the win, but offered a sobering thought. “The fact is the football club just managed to stay up last year and yet our home record was only six points different from the season before when we qualified for Europe,” he said. “Our away record’s been shocking and it is something that we need to improve.”

by Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (January 22^nd 2009)