Report: Bolton Wanderers 0-2 Middlesbrough - A Steaming Turd

Following on from Saturday’s Ipswich Town debacle, you might’ve been forgiven for thinking that Bolton Wanderers’ embattled squad might have some pride and a burning desire to right some of the many many many many many wrongs about that performance.

No.

It was worse.

We welcomed Middlesbrough to the Reebok Stadium last night in yet another must-win game. It was yet another must-win game in which the players failed to turn up. There are exceptions - I thought Remi Matthews, David Wheater and Luca Connell were at least semi-acceptable in their performances - but the rest were absolutely abysmal.

Despite this, Wanderers started the game in a much better fashion than they did against Ipswich. We competed well for the first 15 minutes before a Josh Magennis error led to Marc Wilson forgetting how to play football and Ashley Fletcher tapped in a rebounded ball.

He failed to celebrate, which was disgraceful.

Wanderers then showed their usual mental fragility by chucking the game away completely. Fletcher scored again 12 minutes as the same player scored a proper FIFA goal, curling it away from the helpless Matthews to make it 2-0.

The second half was a non-event, made interesting only by watching the many many different ways that Britt Assombalonga could go about missing easy chances.

Sammy Ameobi hit the bar in the final minute with his only meaningful contribution to the game, but soon after the Wanderers side left the field to a smattering of boos from the crowd which, by the end, counted about 4,000 people.

It was yet another step towards relegation and yet another stain on the history of this once-great club. The end of the season cannot come soon enough.