Hodgson hails ‘gritty’ display

ROY HODGSON is allowing his natural optimism to slowly start filtering to the surface after Maxi Rodriguez’s late strike helped secure his first back-to-back Premier League victories as Liverpool manager.

After a hard-working win over Blackburn Rovers last weekend, Liverpool delivered more of the same against a stoic and creative Bolton Wanderers side who were perhaps worthy of a point.

But Maxi thrashed past Jussi Jaaskelainen with just four minutes to go and all of a sudden, life seems rosy again at Anfield. But not too rosy just yet.

“I was delighted with our performance, it was a very gritty performance and it is not easy to beat Bolton – or Blackburn for that matter,” Hodgson said.

“You have to be well organised and have players who can deal with the situation and I can congratulate the players for doing that today. It was nice to win away from home for a change.”

And Hodgson is hoping the win can be a springboard for the rest of the season. “We hope so. The good thing is that we are defending so much better. I know that we will score goals.

“At the moment we aren’t and I could get criticised for making that bold statement but I do believe that we will score goals with Gerrard, Torres, Dirk Kuyt and Sotirios coming up from the back. It’s still too early to be too optimistic but it is a step in the right direction.

“The players know they can now dig in when they need to in games like this and that’s a good thing to know.”

Opposite number Owen Coyle was not quite as upbeat in his post-match dissection of the game and was understandably upset that a Jamie Carragher handball was missed by referee Martin Atkinson with the game goalless.

“I hate to go on about it but we were denied a clear penalty in the first half and could have had a couple in the second half when Kevin Davies was knocked to the ground as well,” Coyle said.

“I keep saying the same things every week and it’s supposed to even itself out but if that’s the case then we deserve about 20 penalties before Christmas.

“I felt in the last third we could have had a little bit more quality and more finesse but the application and endeavour was there for everybody to see,” he added. “It’s happened now, though, and we will take our medicine or a kick in the teeth or whatever you want to call it.”