Monday's Bolton reax

Chris Wheeler, Daily Mail

Carlos Tevez was simply magnificent, following up his match-winning performance against Chelsea with two goals either side of a superb move finished off by Micah Richards.

However, City’s attacking performance should not paper over another flawed defensive display that saw them draw for the eighth time in nine Premier League games.

Tim Rich, The Independent

On Saturday as City, fresh from victories against Arsenal and Chelsea, found themselves once more unable to shake off the kind of team they are expected to swat aside, Bellamy produced a single, perfect pass that dissected two defenders to allow Micah Richards to drive home an improbably good goal. That he was part of a defence that conceded three against a Bolton side struggling for their lives was not lost on Richards afterwards. Manchester City are not a team built on the galactico principle of Real Madrid where defenders are seen as an afterthought. Gareth Barry, Vincent Kompany, Nigel de Jong, Kolo Touré and Joleon Lescott are an array of defenders and defensive midfielders who have cost the club £78m and have kept one clean sheet in the league since August.

Jeremy Alexander, The Guardian

City's trouble was that, barring Bellamy and Tévez, they did not engage top gear until they were behind or a man short. A club website story trumpeted: "City not resting on their laurels, says Kompany". Would those laurels be a first win in eight games or the League Cup in 1976? At first go they fell back into their rut of draws.

Tévez deserved his two goals and Bellamy, fired by a marker, Gretar Steinsson, with more tattoos than himself, wonderfully made the second for Micah Richards. But Emmanuel Adebayor was disengaged, then substituted when he should have been winning the game against 10 men.

Nick Szczepanik, The Times

So was this a triumph or disaster for City? On the one hand, they scored three goals on a ground where they had not found the net in the league since 2004. On the other, it was their eighth draw in nine league matches, they had conceded three to a team in the relegation zone — and it could have been more.

Hughes was reluctant to find fault with his defence, although he might change his mind after studying the DVD. He also praised his players’ character. “A year ago we might have lost this game,” he said. “We’ve dug in. We’ve only been beaten once. There have been draws. Some have been frustrating, but others, like today, are a good point given the circumstances of the game.”

Graham Chase, Telegraph

Although Hughes was probably right in the assertion that if City had been 3-2 down and reduced to 10 men a year ago they would not have come away with anything from the Reebok, there are two ways of looking at the developments at Eastlands.

They have suffered one defeat all season and are unbeaten in 13 matches but have picked up just 11 points from their last nine league games and continue to look shaky at the back.

Sunday's Bolton reax

Tim Rich, Independent on Sunday

The last month has proved beyond question that money has not changed Manchester City; they remain the same fallible, thrilling and frustrating side they always were. Francis Lee or Georgi Kinkladze would have recognised that performance, although they would have admired the way Manchester City, reduced to 10 men, fought their way back into the contest, with Carlos Tevez scoring twice from the edge of the area.

Andrew Longmore, The Sunday Times

Indolent one moment, quick and incisive the next, City are the Premier League’s Rubik Cube, insoluble, maddening, time-consuming.

Joe Bernstein, Mail on Sunday

In fact, Bolton could have taken all three points, which would have hurled the pressure back on to Hughes after the respite of last weekend’s victory over Chelsea.

Three times the home side led and made the visitors look ordinary. It was City’s courage rather than class that earned them a point, which is not good enough against opposition, like Bolton, struggling in the bottom three.

Tim Rich, The Observer

Sheikh Mansour has spent £250m on Manchester City, so they could belong in rarefied company and when you add in the 4-2 victory over Arsenal in the Premier League and the startlingly good display in the Manchester derby to last weekend's win over Chelsea, this Hughes has achieved. However, the oil money was handed over on the assumption that points would not be dropped to Hull, Burnley, Fulham and now Bolton, who between them have scored nine times against two central defenders who cost £40m. In attack, Hughes lost Shaun Wright-Phillips, who had dazzled in the 2-1 victory over Chelsea, with an ankle injury and, to his lasting fury, saw Bellamy dismissed.

Graham Chase, Sunday Telegraph

There was plenty to fault in this performance, particularly their slow start and doubts about the defending of £40 million centre-back partnership Kolo Toure and Joleon Lescott.

But City provided answers to lingering questions about their character with the good just about cancelling out the bad, though most clubs with Champions League pretensions will hope to leave the Reebok Stadium with three points and they have drawn eight games in that 13-match run without a defeat.

Bolton 3 - 3 City

• So was Shay Given's penalty save a Mark Robins moment or not? Did those consecutive home wins against the big London sides mark a decisive turning point in our season, or even in the ADUG/Hughes era? Or was it just a high point in the seismograph reading that characterises every Manchester City season since 1894? Ultimately any result at the Reebok on Saturday would have returned an open verdict on this question. But I think the answer is probably more no than yes.

• There was something very attractive, very Mark Hughes, about our fightback. Coming from behind three times - the third time when playing (unjustly) with ten men - is the sign of a team with more grit than we have shown for a while. When the manager said that we would have lost this game last season he is absolutely right. Our failure to come back from losing positions - particularly on the road - was one of the most infuriating aspects of 2008/09.

• But we knew that this team could fight. The issue is whether they can defend. And if the Chelsea win signified anything, it was that our back four was starting to come together, to look like something approaching a working unit. Shay Given and Nigel de Jong took the headlines last Saturday but Kolo Touré and Joleon Lescott were almost as crucial to our taking the three points. And so the question was whether they could continue that form through to this Saturday and hold out goal shy Bolton Wanderers.

• And they flunked it. Three goals conceded, and while Gary Cahill's was a special moment Bolton had enough chances to suggest that Touré and Lescott weren't quite doing as well as they might. Yes, ideally we would have had de Jong and Wayne Bridge rather than Sylvinho and Vincent Kompany; but strength in depth is meant to be our strong point. (Given United's recent injury crisis I am convinced than on any given matchday our bench is the strongest in the Premier League. Have a look and you'll agree with me.)
  

• But if you're looking for a turning point here's one: Carlos Tévez's gamechanging cameo at Anfield a few weeks ago. That was the first team we saw him do for us what we know he can. And it gave him the confidence to do it. After a quiet game against Hull he has four goals in the last three, and three exceptional performances to match. He is growing in his leadership on the pitch, which, with our other generals Nigel de Jong and Craig Bellamy missing at White Hart Lane, will be crucial.
  

Bolton preview

I've said quite a few times (but not for a while) that our success in the Premier League this season will be defined by our success on the battlefields of the bottom half. This was our prime failing last year (look it up), and the area where the purchases of Shay Given, Gareth Barry, Joleon Lescott, Carlos Tévez and so forth ought to make the biggest difference.

(This argument has been undermined recently. It was based on the presumption that we would maintain our home form of last season, but, in drawing with Fulham, Hull and Burnley it has regressed somewhat. One could argue, though, that having dropped those points it's even more important that we pick up more points on the road.)

But it's an area where we've done ok so far. We won at Blackburn, we won at Portsmouth, we drew at Wigan and we drew at Birmingham. Compared to last year's results in these games we're ahead. And, after a sequence of a home game, Anfield and three more home games we're back to the familiar challenge of having to go to a small, hostile ground, against a physical team and hoping to come away with the points. It's not going to be easy, but after the week we've just had (Michael Johnson setback notwithstanding) I feel like we've got a great chance.

In terms of selection I think the nature of challenge will incline Hughes towards the graft of Nigel de Jong and Craig Bellamy rather than the craft of Stephen Ireland and Robinho. Gareth Barry, Shaun Wright-Phillips and the two strikers should complete the front six. In defence the one outstanding issue is left back, and while Gareth Barry presents a good option (also allowing for the inclusion of Ireland in midfield), I think he will go with the specialist in Sylvinho. I'm not sure he will want to move Joleon Lescott out there, given the improvements he is making in his partnership with Kolo Touré, and I don't think Javi Garrido is good enough. Pablo Zabaleta is a passable left back but will probably stay on the bench.

It's certainly a better team than whichever collection of cloggers Megson sends out. And given the contrast in confidence between the two camps I'm actually going to predict a win tomorrow. 2-0.

Bellamy and Ireland fit again

Both available on Saturday. My sense is that Bellamy will come in for Robinho on the left and Ireland will start on the bench (unless Barry goes to left back.) I may even demonstrate potential lineups with those blue cards I used to do (currently hamstrung by IT problems that are still unresolved since I moved into a new flat in September), but I'll see what I can do.