JAY LEADS THE WAY AS LIONS’ RUN ENDS
Trotters back up to third
BOLTON boss Phil Parkinson shone the spotlight on midfielder Jay Spearing as the Trotters returned to winning ways by comfortably brushing aside in-form Millwall and climb back up to third in the table.
A wonderful volley early on in the game from Josh Vela and a second-half header from Tom Thorpe were enough to put the brakes on Millwall’s fine run, inflicting what was their first defeat since last time they came up against Bolton on October 18.
And Parkinson spoke of his delight that his side had bounced back from defeat the week before against Peterborough in such a positive manner.
He said: “I’m so pleased that we’ve responded like we did, character was needed and it was certainly shown throughout, I’m so pleased with the manner of the win.
“I thought we did everything we set out to do, last week we didn’t implement what we needed to do well enough and we lost as a result of that but here we did absolutely everything tremendously well.
“We were buoyed by having Jay Spearing back, he was immense. His calmness on the ball, his heart and footballing ability is unquestioned.
“The intensity and quality in our display was back, Millwall found us difficult to cope with.”
The home side took the lead in emphatic fashion on 16 minutes after the ball fell kindly to Vela who made no mistake in striking a sweet 20-yard volley past Millwall keeper Jordan Archer, who couldn’t have done anything to stop the goal.
Bolton would have made it 2-0 if not for the quick-reflexes of Archer who did well to save Zach Clough’s effort, Liam Trotter stabbed in the resulting rebound although the linesman rightly ruled the goal offside.
Moments before the half-time whistle Spearing was denied what would have been a well-deserved second, his looping headed-effort crashing against the crossbar.
Millwall were lucky to go in at the break just a goal down having struggled to cope with Bolton’s brand of attractive free-flowing football.
Wanderers finally doubled their lead on 57 minutes after inspired second-half substitute Tom Thorpe did well to lose his marker and nod in at the far post from Spearing’s corner.
Millwall almost pulled one back through Aiden O’Brien after he got onto the end of a David Worrall ball, although he sliced his effort wide.
Their best effort came shortly after when forward Harry Smith did well to get on the end of a cross from Mahlon Romeo, although his header again was seen agonisingly wide.
Despite having looked somewhat more threatening in the latter stages of the second half, the visitors couldn’t rise to the occasion, seeing their five-game winning run come to an end with Bolton comfortably taking all three points.
And Millwall manager Neil Harris blasted his side for taking their eye off the ball and allowing Bolton to find the net twice.
“Before the game I said that we needed to be on the right end of quality moments, and we were on the wrong side of one here frustratingly,” former Lions striker Harris said.
“We conceded two goals because of ourselves, it was really poor, there was naivety in our performance.
“I’ll be the first to praise our young players but they’ve got to do better with the goals they conceded out there.
“That being said I thought there was nothing in the game, we could have used the ball slightly better and we had a good couple of chances to score, but we’ve lost 2-0 at the end of the day.
“I’m frustrated, I’m disappointed for my players. I think we lacked belief in the first half, I’ll certainly look at myself for the team I selected.”