Few rays of light for beleaguered Bolton

NO goal-threat, a defender who pleads to come off at half-time at Old Trafford and now rumours of a split in the dressing room. Bolton’s fate looks clearer with each passing week.

Just a few days after Abdoulaye Meite raised the white flag in his personal relegation fight by asking to come off in the 2-0 defeat at Manchester United, there is now talk that the performance on and off the pitch of El-Hadji Diouf, not a character normally associated with harmony, was the main topic of discussion in a meeting between the Bolton players.

More importantly, however, is a chronic lack of goals that has seen them fail to hit the net in their last four matches and not win in the Premier League since Reading were beaten 2-0 at the start of February.

They managed the better of the chances against a similarly off-colour City, but a quick glance at their run-in, home games against Arsenal, West Ham and Sunderland and trips to Aston Villa, Middlesbrough, Tottenham and Chelsea, quickly puts a dent in any possible optimism.

They will now be without Kevin Nolan for two matches after he picked up his 10th booking of the season but the Bolton skipper continues to push a message of defiance. “There’s still 21 points to play for,” he said. “We’ve still to play a few teams that are around us while others are now safe.

“We still have Arsenal and Chelsea as well but we’ve done well against big clubs in the past. This is not where we think we should be and we’re deeply hurt finding ourselves in it.”

This was a real mess of a game, with Gretar Steinsson heading onto the bar from Danny Guthrie’s corner the only noteworthy moment of a particularly poor first half. Elano improved City, who broke with purpose, after coming on just before the hour and went close with two drives, while Felipe Caicedo also had an effort cleared off the line.

They may look doomed but Bolton still managed to have an effect on Sven-Goran Eriksson. “Some of the foreigners came in the dressing room and said in perfect English: ‘Bloody this and bloody that. All these long balls,’” he revealed. “It is hard to play against them.”

BOLTON (4-5-1): Al Habsi 7, Steinsson 7, Cahill 8, Andrew O’Brien 6, Gardner 5 (Joey O’Brien 46, 6), Diouf 5, Nolan 5, Campo 6 (McCann 63, 6), Guthrie 7, Taylor 5 (Giannakopoulos 83, 6), Davies 6.

Subs Not Used: Walker, Rasiak.

MANCHESTER CITY (4-5-1): Hart 5, Corluka 6, Onuoha 6, Dunne 8, Garrido 6, Ireland 6 (Elano 58, 7), Gelson 7, Johnson 7, Petrov 6, Vassell 4 (Caicedo 58, 7), Mwaruwari 6.

Subs Not Used: Isaksson, Jihai, Castillo.

REFEREE: Andre Marriner (West Midlands) 8: This was always going to be frantic and Marriner adopted a common sense approach, with Nolan the only player to be booked.

MATCH RATING: ** Bolton dropped two points that may cost them in weeks to come.