Tomorrow sees the game that a couple of months was being predicted by some as the one we’d clinch promotion in. As it stands, victory over Bolton at Cardiff City Stadium in the lunchtime kick off, would feel like a huge step towards a top two finish. What it would do is ensure that victories in our final two home games against teams that will, in all likelihood, have had their relegation confirmed would mean we’d be up no matter what Bolton, Bradford and Stockport do in their remaining games.
There are two ways of looking at Bolton’s results over the past three months or so, the glass half full version says that they’ve only lost once in their last seventeen games, but the glass half empty view is that recent home draws with the likes of Blackpool and Doncaster and an away draw at Rotherham reiterate the view that they’ve not been doing enough to close the gap between them and second place.
Although Monday’s opponents, Stockport, are one of those teams that can still dream of coming second, another draw was not good enough really for Bolton and, while a point tomorrow wouldn’t be too bad an outcome for us, it, surely, has to be a win for our visitors?
The downsides for City are, first, their stuttering recent results which have seen them turn from a free scoring team by Cardiff standards of the Tan era into an outfit that looks like it has no confidence whatsoever in their finishing as exemplified by three home games without a goal.
Secondly, from having four realistic contenders for the centreback position through much of the season, we’re now in a position where it could well be that only one of them will be able to play tomorrow. Gabriel Osho is definitely out as he completes his three game suspension and the way BBM talked about Calum Chambers’ wrist injury in Wednesday’s press conference makes it sound like he is going to miss out. On Wednesday, Dylan Lawlor had still not trained following his frustrating injury picked up in the pointless Northern Ireland friendly, but you’d think every effort is going to be made to ensure he starts and my feeling is that he will.
However, if Chambers and Lawlor miss out, will we see Ronan Kpakio come in on the right with Perry Ng switched to the middle as happened in the second half on Monday when the young Wales player looked very low on confidence? To be frank, it’s hard to see many alternatives to this if we’re not going to bring in someone from the under 21s for a league debut.
Possible options would be to play Ryan Wintle at centreback as he did following Osho’s red card against Wycombe and continue with David Turnbull in the starting line up or Joel Colwill could start in midfield. The other one would be to play Calum Scanlon at left back, assuming his absence from Peterborough squad was not down to injury, and Joel Bagan would slot in alongside Will Fish.
Anyway, on to the quiz, with the answers to the seven questions being posted on Sunday.
60s. I suppose he would have been thought of as a number ten or number eight these days, rather than the inside forward he was classed as when he started with Bolton nearly seventy years ago. He was a fixture in their side for a number of years before a move to his native county to play for a team which is, just about, still hoping for a return to the EFL next season seemed to be a sign of his career winding down. However, a year later he returned to Lancashire to sign for a First Division club and, although thirty odd appearances in his three years there suggested he was a squad member rather than a regular starter, he didn’t move on until he was well into his thirties. His final league club were very recent opponents of ours and, after leaving the full time game, there was a move overseas to play geographically close to the Blarney Stone before he turned out for a couple of non league clubs from Greater Manchester, who is being described here?
70s. This defender spent the large majority of his career wearing a white shirt. Starting with Bolton as a teenager, he would still be classed as a young player when he was signed by a club that were no longer regular opponents of theirs. He spent close to a decade at his second club and, just before he left, he was a squad member when they ended a fairly long wait for a trophy. He became a kind of Embassy worker wearing red for a while during a loan transfer and moved on permanently four years later when he travelled not too far to play in red again in a depression. After that, he played a game for Floridian hooligans before finishing up pretty close to Bolton with another team with hopes of getting back into the EFL in 26/27, but who is he?
80s. Help nail Graham Taylor’s assistant! (4,4)
90s. Northern vaults aurally.
00s. Which Bolton player from this decade shares his name with a one time trumpeter for an ex Animal who went on to be closely associated with someone who I think it’s fair to say was, and still is, considered a broadcasting legend before his death in 2004?
10s. He was a Cardiff City player in the noughties, a Bolton player during this decade and is currently on the books of a League Two club. He has a First Class Batchelor of Arts degree in Sports Journalism and Broadcasting and has an international cap of sorts when he played for an England side in Martin Keown’s Testimonial game as a seventeen year old – name him.
20s. Island sanctuary?
Answers:
