Boro maintain momentum with home defeat of Bolton - 7M sport

Boro maintain momentum with home defeat of Bolton



Posted Thursday, September 20, 2018 by PA

Boro maintain momentum with home defeat of Bolton

Middlesbrough reclaimed second place in the Sky Bet Championship table as George Saville’s first-half strike and a stoppage-time finish from Britt Assombalonga secured a 2-0 win over Bolton.

Tony Pulis’ side returned to winning ways with a routine win at the Riverside, after suffering their first defeat of the season at Norwich last weekend.

Saville’s first goal in a Middlesbrough shirt set them on their way, with the Northern Ireland international sweeping home shortly after the half-hour mark after Gary O’Neil’s dreadful backpass played the Bolton defence into trouble.

The visitors never looked like getting back on level terms, and Assombalonga settled things when he broke away to score in the fifth minute of stoppage time.

Pulis opted to ring the changes in the wake of Saturday’s setback in Norfolk, switching to a flat back four instead of the five-man defence he had been fielding in recent games.

The Boro boss also handed Jordan Hugill a first league start in place of Assombalonga, and the hosts spent most of the first half trying to feed the ball in to the West Ham loanee.

They did not have a lot of joy initially, with Bolton’s well-drilled five-man defence smothering Boro’s attempts to create space in the 18-yard box.

However, as the opening period wore on, Boro gradually became more threatening. Hugill thought he should have had a penalty when he went down under a challenge from Mark Beevers, then Jonny Howson twisted past his marker before firing over from 25 yards.

Even so, Bolton were holding out reasonably well before an error from former Middlesbrough midfielder O’Neil undid all their good work.

Stewart Downing’s long-range strike was blocked, but O’Neil attempted a dreadful pass to his own goalkeeper which instead struck David Wheater. The ball broke kindly for Saville and the summer signing swept home his first goal since he joined on loan from Millwall in the summer.

The goal added an extra spring to Middlesbrough’s step, and only a smart save from Ben Alnwick prevented the home side doubling their lead after an overlapping Ryan Shotton drilled in a low strike.

Martin Braithwaite whistled another effort over the crossbar shortly before the break, and the interval arrived without Bolton having mustered a single effort at goal.

That changed in the early stages of the second half when former Middlesbrough full-back Jonathan Grounds found himself in an inviting position when Pawel Olkowski’s blocked shot broke to him on the corner of the penalty area – but he was unable to prevent his drive sailing over the crossbar.

That was a difficult opportunity, but the visitors spurned a much better one on the hour mark. Grounds’ deflected shot fell nicely for Josh Vela, but the striker could only direct a tame side-footed effort straight at goalkeeper Darren Randolph when he should really have scored.

Assombalonga came off the bench late on, and when Marc Wilson failed to deal with a late long ball, the substitute galloped clear to score.

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