I've never seen us defend that badly individually or collectively
I've never seen us defend that badly, individually or collectively. I'm hoping it was a complete one-off."Birmingham, having survived one of the misses of the season by Diomansy Kamara, went ahead after Curtis Davies felled Mikkel Forssell. "Whoever I put out," he said pointedly, "I expect them to defend better than that."When it was suggested to Bruce that his goalkeeper, Maik Taylor, flapped anxiously at a cross and a shot as Albion pressed for the winner, the Birmingham manager replied: "He's got a right to be nervous playing in front of that back four. In the end we could have scored four or five."Corroboration came from Bruce, who admitted that Birmingham had "got away with it". Grimacing at the mention of his error-ridden centre-backs, Martin Latka and Martin Taylor, he relished the imminent return of Kenny Cunningham and Matthew Upson. Gold had reasoned that his club, anchored in the bottom three for almost five months, would have the edge over Albion during the run-in because the manager Steve Bruce had "more quality" at his disposal."Our captain, Kevin Campbell, mentioned it just before we went out and it wound us up," Greening said "We happen to think we've got a lot of quality in our team We like to play the right way One side was playing football, which was us The other was just launching it We're all deflated.
However, he was also "devastated" not to have won a relegation battle in which Albion struck post and bar and had cause to dispute the penalty that brought Birmingham a flattering lead. Greening revealed how the utterances of the Birmingham chairman David Gold effectively did Robson's motivational work for him. The midfielder declared himself "pleased" with the performance of Bryan Robson's team. This time they left with a moral victory and their three-point lead over Birmingham City intact, but less inclined to laugh than cry. Albion's conflicting emotions - epitomised by the way they trudged off after throwing their shirts to their supporters like conquering heroes - were articulated by Jonathan Greening. There are defeats that feel like disasters and draws that feel like defeats. West Bromwich Albion endured the first in last season's 4-0 surrender at St Andrew's.
Substitutes not used: Bywater (gk), Harewood, Ashton.Referee: M Dean (Wirral).Booked: Bolton Vaz Te; West Ham Scaloni, Sheringham, Ferdinand.Man of the match: Stelios.Attendance: 24,461.. Substitutes not used: Walker (gk), Borgetti.West Ham United (4-4-2): Hislop; Scaloni, Gabbidon, Ward (Dailly, 46), Konchesky; Newton (Benayoun, 46), Ferdinand, Mullins, Etherington; Sheringham, Zamora. "It didn't work out but I still think he can do it and so does Anton. It's the first game this season that's really gone away from us and I think we will be better on Wednesday. I know what we're going to do." Maybe, but the smart money is surely on Bolton reaching the last eight.Goals: Stelios (11) 1-0; Stelios (32) 2-0; Speed (45) 3-0; Sheringham (78) 3-1; Pedersen (81) 4-1.Bolton Wanderers (4-5-1): Jaaskelainen; O'Brien (Hunt, 66), Jaidi, Ben Haim, Gardner; Stelios (Pedersen, 75), Okocha (Nakata, 84), Speed, Nolan, Vaz Te; Davies. Pardew accepted responsibility for a team selection that saw his two first-choice forwards left on the bench and Anton Ferdinand pushed into midfield.Pardew was trying to compensate for the absence of his captain, Nigel Reo-Coker, but it left Elliott Ward, on his full Premiership debut, to deal with the inevitable Bolton onslaught in central defence."I genuinely feel there is a possibility that Anton could play in midfield next year so I wanted to give it a try," said Pardew, who expects Reo-Coker to be available for the final instalment of the saga.
Gary Speed's overhead kick, after West Ham had failed for the umpteenth time to deal with a set-piece, gave them a three-goal advantage at the interval.The rest of the game was academic, with Teddy Sheringham pulling a goal back before Henrik Pedersen celebrated his return from injury with a spectacular first of the season.As well as Bolton played, the suspicion remains that West Ham were instrumental in their own downfall. The latter two have now contributed 21 goals between them this season while those who choose to stereotype Allardyce might like to note his imagination in converting Okocha, the most individual of talents, into a deep-lying midfielder. "The range of passing Jay Jay's shown and his vision are fantastic and it's opening teams up for us," Allardyce said.Bolton went ahead through Stelios and the Greek midfielder applied the subtlest of deflections to Nolan's long-range shot to overtake his team-mate as the club's leading scorer. All the team played at their top level and we would have been a match for anyone on the day."Jay Jay Okocha, Kevin Nolan and Stelios Giannakopoulos were Bolton's inspiration. As Sam Allardyce, their manager, quite correctly noted: "Sometimes it's the physical side of our game that gets pointed out but today it was all about the pure football side. They lost the Premiership match at Upton Park last August, and three trips to the Reebok Stadium since have yielded elimination from the Carling Cup, Wednesday's replay and, most recently, a humbling League defeat. Bolton were a revelation in the first half on Saturday.