Bolton swept aside by front six with an average age of 21
Add comment September 23rd, 2008
Bolton 1 – 3 Arsenal (Davies 14, Eboue 26, Bendtner 27, Eboue 87) – Highlights courtesy of 101greatgoals
The headline of this article contains a pretty stunning fact. But this youthful side were not once perturbed by Bolton’s physical (but mostly fair) approach. A year ago, if you’d seen a result featuring goals from Eboue, Bendtner, and Denilson, you’d probably have guessed it was in the Carling Cup. The fact those players are now putting in impressive Premier League performances is indicative of the progress they appear to be making.
I thought this was an excellent performance from start to finish, with the exception of a terrible piece of marking by William Gallas that allowed Kevin Davies to give Bolton the lead. After that, we unleashed an onslaught on the Bolton goal. Adebayor and Song both struck the inside of the post, before Nicklas Bendtner’s through-ball was latched on to by Emmanuel Eboue, who tucked away his first league goal.
Eboue’s form so far this season has been massive improvement on last season’s erratic displays. He has played in every midfield position, and done admirably well in each of them. Let’s hope he can keep it up.
Within a minute, we were in front – a stunning move starting with a dragback by Denilson, who later latched onto a brilliant Adebayor through-ball to square for Bendtner to force one in. After surviving a first-half onslaught by Davies on Clichy, and a second-half onslaught by Bolton on Almunia’s goal, Denilson got the third himself.
Substitute Theo Walcott drove through the centre, dragging defenders towards him, proving space for Adebayor to latch onto Walcott’s pass and cross low for Denilson, who fired the ball into the top of the net. The Brazilian’s form has been mixed in the early part of the season, but he’s providing invaluable goals and assists.
An excellent performance and a tremendous result that sees us top of the table. It seems the team listened carefully to Arsene’s pre-match speech – a copy of which was found in the team hotel:
That’s all very lovely, but part of me can’t help but wish it said something like “William: mark Davies”…
