Reading 2-1 Bolton Wanderers - match review *New Section*

 Three points dropped

Reading, despite playing in the Championship last season, were a team that Bolton need to be beating if they want to win the league, or even get promoted. However, they came out of this game with no points and some key players missing for the upcoming games. It is not a good situation for the Wanderers. 

Statistical review

It was not the usual dominant performance from Bolton, possession-wise, and this is probably part of the reason why they lost the game; Bolton only had 51% possession at the end of the game, resulting in the ball stalling in the middle of the pitch for the majority of the game. For 44% of the match, the ball was in the middle third of the pitch and 28% in both of the other thirds - a very even game. Reading also had a lot more shots (18) than Bolton (10), having 7 on target (2 more than Bolton). The most interesting statistic for me is the total shots taken in an outside of the box for both teams: Bolton had 9 shots from inside the box and only 1 outside the box but Reading had 9 from inside and 9 from outside the box. This suggests that Bolton were too patient with their play and possibly tried to get it into the box when a shooting opportunity arises (have not watched the game at this point).

Individually, Josh Sheehan was very impressive yet again. The Welshman played 2 key passes and accurately played his only attempted long ball, also he won 2 fouls and won 100% of his duels (2/2). For Reading, their best player (statistically) Femi Azeez, the 22 year old registered 1 assist but the creativity didn't stop there: Azeez also played 1/1 accurate long balls and 3 key passes! He also won 2/3 of his ground duels and making 2 interceptions, important offensively and defensively. 

Fan Review

This is a new section for the match reviews (and maybe previews) where I ask a fan some questions and give them the opportunity to share their views. For this review it will be Alex (@Alexbwfc4 on twitter). If you want to be the next fan for this aspect of the review, like and retweet the tweet promoting this and I will pick one of you at random.

The first thing I wanted to know was his immediate thoughts on the game, he replied "Started the game too slow. Let them control early on. Charles goal was great. Moved it well until half time", the statistics agree with Alex with Bolton letting Reading have 8 shots and 47% of the ball. However, Charles' goal was very impressive (as he said): the ball fell to Kyle Dempsey and, off balance, he manged to clip the ball over the top to Dion Charles, he used his strength well and got to the ball first, then struck the ball well into the far corner. When asked for his man of the match, Alex went for "Charles, his press isn't matched by anyone else" and I have to say I agree, when Charles isn't on the pitch Bolton aren't the same team, they are far too reliant on him. However, it appears he is injured and could be out for several games, Evatt had this to say "It doesn't look great. Fortunately it's not dislocated. We don't know how bad it is but the pain is unbearable". With Adeboyejo and Nlundulu out of form, these are words that no Bolton fan wants to hear. 

Fans across social media have questioned the refereeing performance and Alex is no different, (when asked what went wrong) saying "Ref for starters, penalty denied but was pinpoint pen". I unfortunately have not seen the penalty claim but the discussion it has caused on social media means it must be at least controversial, the penalty could have completely changed the outcome of this game. Despite the poor performance, Alex would change "not much due to injuries" but he did explain that "Forrester is a great alternative to Jones" and that "Jon Dadi Bodvarsson" could have played instead of Adeboyejo. Bodvarsson may be given a staring opportunity next game, with the injury to Dion Charles, and Forrester will likely play with Santos and Jones, due to the Toal red card. 

In addition, I also asked what Alex thought of the season ahead after some poor performances, positively he replied "Still can't over react fully. But to win titles you can't lose games like that more than once or twice". I agree with this completely, of course the easy thing to do is get annoyed and not be rational about your expectations, with some of social media even calling for Evatt to leave. However, as he says, "to win titles you can't lose games like that" Reading are a team that Bolton expect to beat and need to beat if they want to be a Championship team and that performance wasn't good enough. 

Personally, I still believe that Bolton will get promotion this season but performances like that can't become a regular occurrence. Evatt is definitely the right man for the job but at times he does show his inexperience, the substitutions have to be better and he needs to make more in-game tactical adjustments.