Megson: early goal vital for Bolton chances

GARY MEGSON doubts that Bolton’s 1-0 lead over Atletico Madrid will be enough to see his side through to the next round of the UEFA Cup and has targeted an early Trotters goal in the away leg tonight.

El-Hadji Diouf’s strike in Lancashire has given Bolton a fighting chance of making it through to the last 16 but Megson says they could do with an early breakthrough in Spain.

“I don’t think a one-goal lead is going to be enough to hang on to for a whole 90 minutes,” he said. “It would be beneficial to us if we could score early on and put an enormous amount of pressure on them — that would be ideal.

“But we’ll see how the game pans out — if they score early then everything changes very quickly, so that’s something we’ve got to try and avoid.”

Meanwhile, Atletico forward Luis Garcia is in confident mood but admits his side need to treat the game “like a final”.

“We know what we are playing for against Bolton. It could be one of the most important games of the whole season,” said Garcia, who won the 2005 Champions League during his time at Liverpool.

“We will treat it like a real final and we are confident that we can succeed.

“It would be bad to go out onto the pitch thinking that we are not going to get through. In the dressing room chats among the players we have no doubts about being able to prevail.”

Atletico’s recent home form in Europe should certainly give the Spanish side cause for optimism.

They have won each of their last seven European ties at the Vicente Calderon, scoring 16 goals in the process while conceding only one.

But Javier Aguirre’s men have lost five of their last nine competitive fixtures while winning just twice, and last weekend they suffered a shock 2-1 home defeat to struggling Athletic Bilbao.

“The players are very calm, although we cannot deny that the defeat suffered against Athletic hurt us,” added Spanish international Garcia.

“We must move forward and we can achieve it. Throughout a season there are difficult moments, but you can get over them.”

When asked what tactics he thought Bolton manager Gary Megson might employ in the second leg, Luis Garcia said: “Maybe they will not pressurise us as much as they did at their stadium.

“It was a difficult game there, because they barely gave us any breathing time on the ball.

“Here, perhaps they will keep more players back and try to play more with long balls.”