It has been dawning on me slowly but surely that supporting Bolton is like being in an abusive relationship. Every weekend they hurt me and then I go through several stages. First I'm angry with them, I question our relationship and whether it's worth it. Then I begin to start qualifying and saying to myself "Well, it wasn't too bad," I convince myself they'll change. And so I go back and watch the game next week with high hopes, only to repeat the exact same cycle.I'm sure everyone who supports a non-Big Four club goes through the exact same process.
As you may be able to gather from the title I am not that pleased about yesterday's result. It was a very different game than the one on Wednesday. And the fact that we got the exact same scoreline is very frustrating to me. If you did not see the pure pain that was the game, here are some highlights I found.
I'm not saying we deserves a win, or even a goal, but 4-0? I think 2-0 would have been a much fairer result. Bolton played well and attacked well (though they floundered in the final third) through the first half, and while Chelsea totally outclassed them in the second half, they didn't give up and kept going forward despite the increasing deficit.
There were definitely encouraging things to take away from the game. Chelsea are a fantastic team, I was blown away in parts of the game by the beauty of their football. The inescapable fact of the matter is that Chelsea has massive amounts of money and Bolton don't, Drogba alone cost about as much as Bolton has spent in the last two years. Chelsea aren't a team we will ever be able to beat easily, and they aren't the team we need to be taking points from.
While I'm not bitter about the loss in hind sight (I wrote the first part of this blog right after the game, and I'm finishing it the next morning), I am bitter about the blow to our goal difference. And let's be honest, watching the ball going into the wrong net four times hurts. But overall it wasn't a horrible result.
That's all I plan on saying on the matter (to be quite honest I'm a little sick of writing about Chelsea), but stay tuned as my father will be doing a guest blog for me on the game. He was in England for family reasons and managed to make it to the Reebok (breaking his 10 year streak of never seeing the Wanderers lose at home). I should have that up sometime Monday or Tuesday, til then!