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Five Things: Bolton Wanderers 1-1 Blackpool

A game rich with entertainment, but low on quality

Paul Thomas/Getty Images

Well that was interesting. Bolton Wanderers and Blackpool managed to only score one apiece in a game that saw over 40 shots on goal recorded.

Let's dive right in:

1) We Need a Huge Clearout

Can anyone in a white shirt lay claim to have played well? I give Barry Bannan, Josh Vela and Adam Le Fondre a pass from the starting XI, and Eidur Gudjohnsen from the subs, but the rest? Absolutely hopeless.

We're really struggling with a lack of quality. Without wanting to flog a dead horse too much, can we keep expecting to play well with Liam Feeney in our side? Can we keep expecting to keep a clean sheet with Matt Mills at the heart of our defence?

Not a chance.

I don't know for sure, but it seemed like one or two had already checked out and were on the beach somewhere. The season has NOT ended yet, but you wouldn't know that from the performances of some.

No doubt already imagining their stereotypical dickhead footballer spray parties in Las Vegas that corrupt my summer twitter feed. Boils my piss, it really does.

The end of the season can't come soon enough for them, and for me based on that shite. Rubbish.

Ben Amos looked shaky, Tim Ream lived up to the criticism that some have levelled at him in the past, Matt Mills was dreadful, Paddy McCarthy looked like a journeyman centre half clogger, Neil Danns looked like someone who has flown across the globe and back in the last week, Liam Feeney was Liam Feeney, Rochinha was anonymous and Tom Walker struggled badly.

The future is bright, and I have faith in the boss, but things need to change quickly.

2) Striking Lack of Striking Quality

Adam Le Fondre was one of three players who could hold his head up high following the turgid Wanderers performance.

His efforts were thrown into stark contrast when Craig Davies came on. He looked unfit, lethargic and disinterested. If as rumour be believed, he's already been told that won't have his Bolton Wanderers contract renewed then it showed. Very disappointing from a player whom I've previously praised for his improved effort and graft earlier in the season.

Emile Heskey made a difference as a target man, but showed his own lack of goalscoring nous when presented with a tap-in towards the end - missing the net whilst stood on the line.

Seriously.

Fortunately Eidur Gudjohnsen was on hand to nod home the rebound sparing the former Liverpool striker's blushes.

Reinforcements needed.

3) The Standard of Refereeing

This guy, Mr Coote, was abysmal.

We've spoken before about how poor refs are in this league, but a new low was reached yesterday with the man in the middle being completely and utterly out of his depth.

Bizarre decisions with a complete lack of any sort of consistency enraged the home fans. It's not that much a shock, but it's still galling.

His assistant on the East Stand side wasn't any better, with Gudjohnsen being a good two yards off when the equaliser was struck. He was wearing trainers as well - the liner, not our man. Weird.

4) Liam Feeney

Now we've mentioned this before too - and suffered the ire of his protective teammates, but Feeney really is abysmal.

He's got pace to burn, but seems to have lost the spark that he had before Christmas. He's so lucky in that we are having to rely on him and that we don't have anyone else to put in his place.

Head down and run. Try a step-over. Fail.

Rinse and repeat. It's getting tedious. The man has little-to-no technical ability, and seemingly has the composure of my 3yr old daughter whenever I do a T-Rex impression. She goes to pieces and is good for nothing - and so is Liam Feeney.

Obviously he's a better footballer than she is - she's only 3, but we need to improve upon him and others of his level over the summer. We had a good number of disappointing performers yesterday, with Matt Mills, Paddy McCarthy and Neil Danns being amongst the worst culprits - but Mr Feeney takes the Razzie Award.

Dreadful.

I'd wager that Neil Lennon knows this as well. You could tell from his demeanour throughout the game that he wasn't happy. He has said as much in the press lately. Big changes are afoot and they cannot come soon enough.

5) Blackpool FC & Their Supporters

I've had a grand old time over the last 48hrs on Twitter (@19manning83) dealing with the substandard trolling efforts of Blackpool's mouth-breathing fanbase, and how they must have been itching to send me gloating tweets at full time had the score remained 1-0 to the away side.

However, as we saw, the mighty Bolton managed to secure a well-deserved point.

I was very disappointed with Blackpool yesterday - and not just because their fans couldn't orchestrate a twitter-hunt if their lives depended on it - more because of the lack of fight that they displayed. According to reports they brought 600 to the Reebok yesterday but it didn't look like it. Certainly didn't sound like it either.

A lack of noise was somewhat compensated by their approach to supporting their team - throwing orange smoke-bombs and being chucked out en masse seemed to satisfy the moronic hordes, though apart from a couple of sad efforts at 'Oyston Out' they barely raised a murmur, even when they took the lead.

For a club in such turmoil it was a disappointing showing from a once-proud fanbase. Apathy appears to have taken hold of the club, and the present lot seemed disinterested in fighting the good fight.

On the field they weren't much better. A rag-tag group of nobodies and never-have-beens, they put up a decent showing for half an hour, but otherwise ended up lucky that we struggled to dispatch the numerous chances that we had.

At least it'll be a long time til we see them again.