Parkinson: We need to be more clinical
BOLTON manager Phil Parkinson wants his team to show a more ruthless streak in front of goal after they had to rely on a late Brandon Ormonde-Ottewill own goal to earn victory over Swindon.
Robins keeper Lawrence Vigouroux’s heroics at the County Ground looked like frustrating the visitors, but Ormonde-Ottewill deflected Josh Vela’s shot into the bottom corner in the 85th minute to hand Wanderers a first league win in eight games.
Parkinson said: “I felt on the basis of play that we deserved to win. We had so many chances to kill the game off and we weren’t able to take them.
“We kept believing and stuck to our gameplan and, in the end, we got our reward albeit with a little bit of fortune.
“I think the way we played we deserved something to go for us.
“In the recent run we have been on we have had periods like we did here and dominated, but failed to take our chances.
“We are back on track. Everybody has stuck together in this period and the true test is when you don’t have a good run and everyone has stuck together through that.
“I think a four or five nil victory for us is just around the corner. If we keep creating chances, we know the goals will come.”
Bolton wasted a plethora of chances and winger James Henry could have scored a brace only to be denied twice from one-on-one attempts.
Following Ormonde-Ottewill’s own goal, Swindon defender Raphael Rossi Branco was then given a straight red card in the 90th minute for elbowing Bolton’s Lawrie Wilson.
Swindon’s assistant manager Ross Embleton said: “It’s very hard to take. I don’t want to go down the line of saying it was a wheels-coming-off moment, but it was damaging. They had one or two moments where Lawrence kept us in it, but I just felt we lacked that threat at the top end of the pitch.
“Lawrence has been absolutely fantastic, the saves that he made were outstanding. We can take a lot of positives from his performance.”
Scunthorpe saw their lead at the top of the table cut to just a point as they were held to a 1-1 draw at home by 10-man Northampton.
Josh Morris struck his 12th league goal of the season, but after Matt Taylor saw red for the Cobblers, Jak McCourt hammered home his first senior goal to earn Rob Page’s men a point at Glanford Park.
Bradford maintained their unbeaten start to the season by beating managerless Shrewsbury 2-0 to move a point behind Scunthorpe.
Nicky Law and a late penalty from Haris Vuckic saw the Bantams home.
Oldham moved off the bottom spot with a 2-1 win at Gillingham, Freddie Ladapo and Ryan Flynn hitting back after they fell behind to Cody McDonald’s 10th-minute goal.