It is the 91st minute. The away team, one goal up but one man down, have possession, the ball at the feet of their centre-half, who is out of position on the right side of the pitch.
It is hard to think of many teams, particularly among those fighting near the bottom of the division, who would react to this situation as Bolton did on Saturday. Zat Knight, the centre-half in question, took the ball past two defenders and ran 70 yards before sending in a cross which Kevin Davies volleyed against the bar.
“We got the job in the bottom three and people said the only way you get out of that is you fight, you scratch and you do all those things,” explained Bolton’s manager, Owen Coyle. “But I believe if you’re able to get the ball down and pass and move as well, that can only help.”
After 10 away league games without a win and four without so much as a goal, Bolton tore into West Ham with an almost violent vigour. Their strikers must have been as bewildered as their opponents: after the famine, a feast. Perhaps thereis something about West Ham that inspires them – of 18 meetings over the lastdecade they have won 12, the Hammers only three.
Even Gianfranco Zola, the home side’s manager, was considering the possibility of their being jinxed. “It’s something I’ve been asking myself a lot,” he said. “Against one team maybe you always lose for some reason. I don’t know what is the reason but, if you find out, please let me know.”
The run of results may be hard to explain, this last one is not. After a dismal start too few players had the appetite to recover the situation and most of those who did were preoccupied with the outstanding Davies. “We usually start like a house on fire,” said Kieron Dyer afterwards. Here they started as if their own house was on fire: running in different directions and panicking a lot.
In the 19th minute, by which time West Ham were two goals down, the ball was cleared by their defence, landing close to the halfway line. It fell barely five yards away from Guillermo Franco but the Mexican ignored it altogether, having by then decided that the physical reality of competing with Bolton probably was not for him. Instead Carlton Cole ran back 20 yards to win the ball in the air and was promptly given offside. It was a minor moment but it summed up the game.
“All credit to Bolton,” said Dyer. “We expected them to sit off and let us have possession of the ball and hit us on the break but they came straight for us.”
For Dyer, who has not started a game since injuring his hamstring in December’s defeat at the Reebok Stadium, the result ended a chastening week, in which he was singled out in West Ham’s accounts for being a waste of the club’s money.
“Everyone has forgotten that I probably had a worse leg break than Aaron Ramsey and have had four operations to try to get it right,” he said. “I have put in everything I can to get fit for this club but it is not enough for some people. All I can do is get my head down and hopefully I can change some other people’s minds.”
Davies, meanwhile, need convince nobody of his value. “Outwith a top player he’s a top man and a great captain,” said Coyle after the striker scored one goal, winning a rather unfair fight with Julien Faubert to meet Lee Chung-yong’s cross with an emphatic header, and was largely responsible for the other, with which Jack Wilshere became this Premier League season’s youngest scorer.
After half-time West Ham sporadically added attackers until by the end they had five but still little idea what to do with them. Alessandro Diamanti’s excellent late goal was out of keeping with his, or his team’s, performance.
“I think this game, it’s going to be a big lesson for everybody,” said Zola, hopefully.
Premier LeagueWest Ham UnitedBolton WanderersOwen CoyleSimon Burntonguardian.co.uk
