Bolton Wanderers sneak past Birmingham City to reach semi-finals of FA Cup
Bolton Wanderers beat Birmingham City 3-2 in the quarterfinal of the FA Cup at the St. Andrews on Saturday afternoon.
A late winner from Chung-Young Lee guided Bolton to the semi-final of the competition.
Alex McLeish made wholesale changes to his side that held Everton to a 1-1 draw recently. Kevin Phillips and http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Cameron-Jerome-c8284 started upfront in a 4-4-2 setup for the hosts.
On the other hand, Bolton made one change to their starting line-up that beat Aston Villa 3-2 recently. Cup tied striker http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Ivan-c17215 Klasnic for the visitors.
The game took off at a decent pace, as both teams looked to make early inroads. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Sebastian-Larsson-c32733 tried an audacious volley in the second minute of the game but his effort went over the bar. Bolton enjoyed major share of possession in the opening 20
minutes and created a few decent opportunities.
The visitors opened the scoring in the 21st minute. Jussi Jaaskelainen’s long clearance was flicked onto http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Johan-Elmander-c18782 by Klasnic and the Swede beat the offside trap to smash a shot into the bottom corner of the net to make
it 1-0.
Birmingham suffered a double injury blow just before the half hour mark. Martin Jiranek and http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Barry-Ferguson-c7311 had to be replaced after the duo picked up ankle and rib injuries respectively.
Birmingham equalised in the 38th minute, after Jerome capitalised on a poor clearance from David Wheater and pinged a cracking shot into the bottom corner to make it 1-1.
The pace of the game dried up after the goal and the second half witnessed a slow start.
Birmingham had a great opportunity to take the lead before the hour mark. Jerome tried to round Jaaskelainen but the keeper somehow managed to clear the ball away for a corner.
Bolton had a goal disallowed, after the offside flag went up against Kevin Davies. A minute later, the Trotters were awarded a penalty kick when http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Kevin-Davies-c20716 in the box. Kevin Davies stepped up and planted the ball into the
middle of the net to make it 2-1 for the visitors.
Four minutes later, the hosts had a wonderful chance to equalise but http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Kevin-Phillips-c20763’ diagonal shot rattled against the woodwork and went out for a goal kick.
Phillips managed to equalise ten minutes from the full time whistle. The striker smashed an incredible looping volley over the keeper from 25 yards to make it 2-2.
Both teams worked hard to find a winning goal and had several efforts which went in vain.
Chung-Young Lee managed to find the winner for Bolton just before the full time whistle. Birmingham failed to clear a free kick and Kevin Davies nodded it to unmarked http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Ben-Foster-c7445 to win it 3-2 for Bolton.
The draws for the semi-finals will take place on 13 March, 2011.
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