Sport

West Ham made to pay for mistakes

Bolton 3 West Ham 1: THIS WEST HAM side is plenty good enough to get itself relegated and is making the kind of errors that …

TIM RICH at the Reebok
Wed Dec 16 2009 - 00:00

Bolton 3 West Ham 1:THIS WEST HAM side is plenty good enough to get itself relegated and is making the kind of errors that usually comes with a club in freefall. The mistake was Robert Green's who tried to beat down a shot from Gary Cahill that should have done no more than sting his gloves. As he tried to bring the ball under control, Ivan Klasnic nipped in and tucked it into the net to make it 2-1 to the home side.

The ill-fortune was Bolton’s first, a product of some adventurous interplay between Klasnic and Chung-Yong Lee in which the Korean carried more than a suspicion of offside before scoring.

West Ham briefly levelled with the kind of well-worked football that is manager Gianfranco Zola’s goal, a cross from Scott Parker, nodded on by Jack Collison and finished off by Alessandro Diamanti. It ought to have built a platform for something more but Bolton were always the more adventurous and aggressive side.

Their third, a header from Gary Cahill rising above two defenders to head home Ricardo Gardner’s corner was typically Bolton. They are still in the mire but four points in two games is a good start.

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Zola must have suspected that Kieron Dyer, making yet another comeback, would not last the night but he must have hoped to have wrung more than 23 minutes from this still-princely footballer before he limped off.

There was an edge to this contest that might be expected from two clubs flailing in the relegation zone. Kevin Davies gave Danny Gabbidon a working over in a footballing sense, before presenting Green with the kind of shoulder charge that would have been routine in Nat Lofthouse’s time, for which the Bolton captain became one of four first-half bookings. Bolton, incidentally, were convinced Gabbidon handled the ball in the area when challenged by Chung-Yong Lee.

BOLTON: Jaaskelainen, Steinsson, Cahill, Knight, Robinson, Lee, Muamba, Cohen, Taylor (Gardner 76), Kevin Davies, Klasnic (Basham 82). Subs not used: Al Habsi, Samuel, Elmander, Ricketts, Andrew O’Brien.Booked: Kevin Davies, Klasnic, Muamba, Cohen. Goals: Lee 64, Klasnic 77, Cahill 88.

WEST HAM: Green, Faubert, Gabbidon, Tomkins, Ilunga, Dyer (Stanislas 21), Parker, Kovac, Collison (Da Costa 87), Franco, Diamanti. Subs not used: Kurucz, Spector, Nouble, Daprela, Payne. Booked: Franco. Goals: Diamanti 69.

Refëree: A Marriner (W Midlands).