Early second-half goals from Josh Sheehan and Amadou Bakayoko saw Bolton Wanderers defeat Crewe Alexandra at the University of Bolton Stadium last night as both teams returned to League 1 action.
Manager David Artell made seven changes from Tuesday’s 3-0 home win against Wolves’ Under-21s in the EFL Trophy with Dave Richards, Rio Adebisi, Luke Offord, Tom Lowery, Madger Gomes, Scott Robertson, Chris Long and captain Mika Mandron all coming into the team which also gave 17-year-old defender Zac Williams his league debut.
The opening chance of the game came in the 5th minute with Bakoyogo heading a cross wide before the forward would drag an effort wide 10 minutes later. The Welsh debutant would make a goalmouth block in the 27th minute as the visitors went in level.
The parity wouldn’t last too long after the break with the hosts winning a penalty after Offord’s under-hit, chested backpass was intercepted with Richards bringing down the forward, midfielder Sheehan would send Richards the wrong way with the penalty. The lead was doubled 4 minutes later with Bakayoko turning in an Elias Kachunga low cross from the right from close range.
Williams almost marked his debut with a goal, heading a Scott Robertson free-kick straight at Joel Dixon in the Trotters’ goal just before the hour-mark before the Alex would hit the woodwork in stoppage-time as a free-kick would be headed out to Gomes whose cushioned volley would hit the inside of the post and bounce to safety.
Our next couple of games see the Alex host Gillingham next Saturday before we travel to AFC Wimbledon the following Tuesday.
What can we take out of this game?
Only a couple of the players can be happy with their own personal performance in the game with Williams playing well at the back as well as Lowery in midfield. As for the rest, there’s not a lot of positives that you can take out of that one – we have a back 5 who are porous after we concede our first goal in games while the forwards are often isolated from the rest of the team.