English Premier League - Match Review: Bolton Wanderers 2-2 vs. Birmingham City
Bolton Wanderers took on Birmingham City in an English Premier League match, which was marred by some atrocious defending as well as some horrible refereeing. The match took place at the Reebok Stadium, which is Bolton’s certified home-ground in the Premier League.
Birmingham City came to the match after achieving a draw against Blackburn in their last match in the English Premier League, whereas Bolton were on a high after winning their last match against West Ham United at the Upton Park. Both the teams lined up with a conventional 4-4-2 system with two strikers upfront followed up by two banks of four in the midfield as well as in defence.
Bolton Wanderers played with Kevin Davies and Elmander in their offense, while Birmingham opted for Cameron Jerome, who played just in front of the ex-Newcastle player Lee Bowyer. In midfield for the Wanderers, Fabrice Muamba, Holden, Lee and Martin Petrov took up the creative responsibilities whereas for their opponents, Gardener, Ferguson, Larsson and McFadden played as the midfield four.
The hosts, under Owen Coyle, chose to start with Knight, Cahill, Robinson and Steinsson in defence, whilst Birmingham trusted Ridgewell, Johnson, Carr and Dann in defence. Foster played as the goalkeeper for Birmingham City and Jaaskelainen took his usual place in between the goal posts for Bolton Wanderers.
The match certainly started off with a bang as in the 4th minute, Bolton opened the scoring with Roger Johnson, who latched onto Lee Bowyer’s pass to give his team the lead. In the 23rd minute of the match, Birmingham City had a case for a penalty shout but the referee waived the protests away as the replay showed their striker Jerome swinging and missing the ball and then falling to the ground of his own account. The ensuing appeals and protests by Lee Bowyer got the feisty midfielder his first yellow card of the match.
In the 36th minute of the match, Roger Johnson collided with Jaaskelainen due to some odd reason; the Bolton goalkeeper proceeded to slap the Birmingham defender on his face. The referee spotted this gesture and duly sent the finish international off by showing him a red card for his disorderly conduct on the field of play. In the follow up inquiry and melee, the referee showed the second yellow card of the match to Roger Johnson. Adam Bogdan came on for Martin Petrov to deputize as the Bolton goalkeeper for the rest of the match in the 37th minute of play.
The first half of the match, which was quite eventful, ended with Birmingham City in the lead due to Johnson’s goal. However, as the second half started, Birmingham continued to press ahead and soon got their second goal in the 51st minute of the match, as Gardener pounced on Jerome’s loose header to double his team’s advantage at the Reebok stadium. In the 70th minute of the match, Bolton were given a chance to earn their way back into the match as the referee gave them an easy penalty for Johnson’s push on Davies inside the Birmingham penalty area. The resulting penalty was taken by Davies, who expertly placed the spot kick into the top right corner of the goal, away from Ben Foster’s reach.
In the 72nd minute of the match, Larsson was shown a yellow card by the referee. After the goal by Davies, Bolton took control of the match and Owen Coyle’s team completed their comeback through Robbie Blake’s brilliant free kick in the 81st minute of the match.
Birmingham had their best chance of the game to win the match in the 91st minute as the ball fell to Jerome inside the Bolton penalty area, but the striker’s finish only found Adam Bogdan inside the Bolton goal. Finally the match ended after five minutes of injury time at the score-line of two all and both the English clubs went away with a point each from their third Premier League match of the season.
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