Man of the Match: Bolton Wanderers 2-2 Bristol City - ‘Super’ Josh Magennis

Our first cash signing in 3 and a half years is already doing a phenomenal job living up to his £200,000 price tag. With Charlton fans seemingly happy to see the back of Josh Magennis, you could be forgiven for thinking that he would not be able to make the step up to the Championship. However, there’s a reason Phil Parkinson is the manager. His persistence in nabbing Magennis is already paying off.

After a dominant display against Albion, it would have been quite difficult to match or better his performance against Bristol City and if we’re being a brutally honest, he did not play as well as he did then. Considering how good he was that day though, that would’ve been asking him to shift heaven and earth for the cause. I’m sure he would have though if the referee hadn’t been so trigger happy to give fouls to Bristol but let’s not delve into that. I’d be here ranting all day at the moronic John Brooks.

‘Super’ Josh Magennis, as quite a few of our more vocal fans have dubbed him, barely gave the Bristol City defence time to rest. With every goal-kick up to him to win in the air, the had to have 2 men surrounding him and even then, Josh more often than not still came out on top, winning header after header. Though his headers would not always find a teammate his hold-up play on the ground certainly produced laying off for some of our more creative players to get forward. He would not let anyone better him, fighting tooth and nail to keep Bolton in possession in the precious few moments they had it. If he hadn’t have been stopped so regularly by the officials, who knows how much more damage he might have done to their backline.

His own persistence to chase down the ball shows that he is also willing to chase shadows to keep Bolton on the front foot and stay in the oppositions faces. He is certainly not a lazy player. Speaking of his running, let’s talk about his goal. As my new favourite full-back, Pawel Olkowski ran up the line, Magennis easily shook off his marker and ran into space that Pawel found tremendously. As he began to be surrounded, he showed composure to quickly roll the ball over to his right and smash it into the back of the net. Making himself only the 6th player to score in both of his first 2 games, the last player being Zach Clough for you interested statisticians out there. Josh is quickly battling his way into the hearts of Bolton fans anywhere, even shaking off a slight knock to his knee to finish the game.

Let’s all pray ‘Super’ Josh keeps this up, then maybe those quotation marks around ‘Super’ won’t be necessary anymore. Maybe John McGinlay won’t be the only SJM for Bolton Wanderers in the future? Time will tell but for now, well done to Josh Magennis. You’ve earned every plaudit you’ve got so far.