West Ham 1-2 Bolton: The Sunday Mirror match report
Published 22:20 06/03/10 By Colin Malam
West Ham could hardly have chosen a worse time to surrender their recent impressive home record.
Unbeaten in their previous four Premier League games at Upton Park without conceding a goal, the Hammers caved in against the power and precision of Kevin Davies and company.
Goals by Davies and Jack Wilshere helped Bolton leapfrog them into 13th place and leave Gianfranco Zola’s men facing successive games at Chelsea and Arsenal in their battle to stay clear of the drop zone.
A late goal by Alessandro Diamanti when Bolton had been reduced to 10 men through Tamir Cohen’s dismissal was not enough to prevent new boss Owen Coyle’s first away win with the Trotters and he could not hide his delight.
“It’s a massive three points,” he said. “It was a terrific performance. We had to withstand a lot of pressure after going down to 10 men.”
Coyle also talked up Davies as a possible left-field choice for England. “He’s difficult to play against,” he said, “and takes as many bangs as he gets. But he’s mobile, he’s a quality player and gets goals.”
Zola was deflated by the loss of a game West Ham had started as favourites to win.
“I wasn’t expecting this, nobody was,” he said. “The way we started the game determined the result. They were better than us.”
Reminded the next two games were away to Chelsea and Arsenal, Zola replied: “Who knows what can happen? We are certainly not going there already beaten.”
In the end, Bolton’s record of not having lost against West Ham since 2006-7 proved more relevant than their own failure to win in 10 away matches before yesterday.
They flew out of the blocks and were two goals up inside 16 minutes.
Davies put them ahead from Lee Chung-Yong’s perfect centre, then set up the second by putting over a cross despite being hemmed in on the byline. Cohen knocked the ball back for on-loan Gunner Wilshere to finish.
All West Ham could offer was a couple of Diamanti free-kicks, the first of which flew just over and the second beaten out by Jussi Jaaskelainen.
Cohen was sent off in the 71st minute for fouling the industrious Scott Parker after doing the same to Radoslav Kovac but Bolton’s 10 men held out stoutly until Diamanti hammered in a rasping shot.
The crowd groaned when substitute Junior Stanislas then drove a shot against the bar, but Davies had gone just as close at the other end.
