Bolton 3-2 Everton

Last updated : 25 October 2009 By Les Roberts

If Everton are still looking to relocate to some retail park on the outskirts of Liverpool then one look at the Reebok Stadium should be enough to put them off!

A soulless late-nineties new build surrounded by car parks and shops...but it's right off the motorway so that's dead handy!

Make no bones about it, it's a dog of a place to go.

And it's even more of a dog of a place to get back from when you've just been beaten after a spirited comeback!

Everton have done the double over Bolton in the last two seasons but a combination of a dip in form and injuries - no, let's be honest, a dip in form because of injuries - meant that the Blues fell to their first defeat at the Reebok since the last day of the 2004-05 season.

On that occasion Everton took the lead thanks to a 9th minute goal from Tim Cahill but it was Bolton that grabbed the early initiative in this one.

With 17 minutes on the clock, Sam Ricketts got past Tony Hibbert down the Everton right and sent a bouncing ball across the box that Chung-Yong Lee steered past Tim Howard.

By that point Tamir Cohen and Kevin Davies - who looks like someone has stuck limbs on a Calor gas bottle - had already misdirected headers wide of the Everton goal.

After a shaky start, and Cohen's goal, Everton started to get the ball down and look a bit more composed but the wind was knocked right out of the sails on 27 minutes as Gary Cahill - why exactly did Villa sell him? - doubled the Trotters' lead.

Matt Taylor chipped a free kick into the Everton box and their Cahill lofted an unchallenged header into the net - something that our Cahill hasn't done in a while!

The worry amongst Everton fans was now growing as, no matter how good we've been under David Moyes, we've always been susceptible to a webbing every now and then and after the balls up at Benfica the worry was that we'd get a roasting at the Reebok.

But, five minutes after Cahill's strike, Louis Saha put the belief back in the Blues with an absolute stunner.

There was nothing on as the Frenchman picked up a pass from Lucas Neill just inside the Bolton half, but he advanced a few yards before unleashing a screamer into the top corner of the Bolton goal.

Foot like a traction engine!

Everton once again took control of the game and finished the half the stronger of the two teams.

But, unlike in midweek, the Blues came out as the more purposeful side in the second half and were level within ten minutes of the restart.

Lucas Neill, who has a lot more to his game than the hatchet man we were expecting, was once again the provider as he fed the ball to Marouane Fellaini in the Bolton box.

The laconic Belgian brought the ball down superbly before turning Cahill - theirs not ours - and hammering the ball into the roof of the net from an acute angle.

Every Evertonian in the ground sensed the win from that moment on as Bolton seemed to fall apart and Everton got their game together.

Dan Gosling probably should have won the game for Everton as he broke away from the Bolton defence but a combination of him running out of steam, being caught in about six minds and a timely intervention by Cahill - theirs not ours - meant that Bolton got off lightly and were still in the game.

And, with a certain inevitibility, the Trotters went on to win it at the death.

Jussi Jaskeleinen belted a long ball upfield and it was nodded down by Davies - no, really, route one to Davies' excited-eight-year-old looking head - and 64th minute substitute Ivan Klasnic reacted quickest to fire past Howard for Bolton's winner.

So everyone left the ground thoroughly deflated at yet another disappointing result.

And we couldn't even get the big shop in from the Asda by the ground as the frozen stuff would've defrosted by time we got home!

All in, a ball bag of a day!