Skip to content

Coyle - We were terrific

Image: Owen Coyle: Delighted with the quality of his side's performance at Hillsborough

Bolton manager Owen Coyle felt his side were good value for a 2-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday, who disappointed Dave Jones.

Jones disappointed with defending in defeat by Bolton

Bolton manager Owen Coyle felt his side were good value for a 2-1 Championship victory over Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough, which left Dave Jones annoyed with his side's defending. The Trotters controlled play in the first half and took the lead just before half-time, Marcos Alonso heading a Chris Eagles cross into the bottom corner. Wednesday improved in the second half and got back on level terms after Anthony Gardner was bundled over in the box, on-loan midfielder Ross Barkley placing the penalty neatly to the right of Adam Bogdan. The game was level for just four minutes, though, before Bolton scored the winner. Mark Davies finished off a superb individual run, waltzing through the home defence and then curling his shot into the top corner. Bolton squandered chances to extend their lead through Eagles and David Ngog, but they had already done enough.

Quality

Coyle said: "When you come to a stadium like Hillsborough, with the huge crowd, you know it's going to be difficult. So for us to put on a performance like that, I thought we were terrific. "It would have been easy for our players to feel sorry for themselves when they got it back to 1-1 - from a penalty that I thought was debatable. "It didn't affect us, though. We picked ourselves up and scored a quality winning goal. "We've scored two goals today and we could have had five or six. Nobody who witnessed that game can argue that the better team won and that we gave a great performance, so we can take confidence from that and now kick on." Wednesday boss Jones was disappointed with the way his team conceded both goals.
Mistake
"Our lads feel that every mistake we make at the moment is being punished," he said. "We had three or four chances to clear both goals, but we didn't and we have been punished. That is the level we are playing at - we can't keep giving the opposition easy chances to score. "When we got the penalty I felt maybe it's turning, but Bolton have some quality players. Remember that they have just come down from the Premier league and you can't give strikers like that a chance to finish. "I felt we worked hard but we have to learn not to switch off. It's a tough learning curve. "We have a lot of young players at the club and we can't get our heads down. We have to stay strong, keep plugging away and hopefully we can turn this run around. "If fans thought we were going to come into this division and take it by storm they are kidding themselves. It's a building process and we are just at the start of that."