Holden: Bolton v. Chelsea; Wednesday December 29th, 2010 2:45 PM EST

Seriously? Only 17 PL games, and he's already a standout? Wow. Good work Stu. Good luck today.

 

Re: Holden: Bolton @ Chelsea; Wednesday December 29th, 2010 2:45 PM EST

Shouldn't this one be Chelsea v Bolton (or Bolton @ Chelsea)?

 

Re: Holden: Bolton @ Chelsea; Wednesday December 29th, 2010 2:45 PM EST

This one is on FSC.

Damn, didn't realize Lee was going to be gone. That's not helpful.

 

Re: Holden: Bolton @ Chelsea; Wednesday December 29th, 2010 2:45 PM EST

Good luck Stu! This will be my first time watching him play for Bolton so I'm pretty excited.

 

Holden starts. Interestingly, Taylor and the 19 year old Rodrigo Moreno get the start on the outside, Petrov is on the bench.

 

Lineups are out:

Bolton: Jaaskelainen, Knight, Cahill, Robinson, Ricketts, Holden, Muamba, Taylor, Rodrigo, Elmander, Davies

Subs: Blake, Klasnic, Petrov, Bogdan, Davies, Alonso

Rodrigo takes Lee's place, starting over Petrov.

Chelsea: Cech, Terry, Ivanovic, Cole, Bosingwa, Ramires, Lampard, Essien, Malouda, Drogba, Anelka

Subs: Ferreira, Turnbull, Kalou, Kakuta, Aanholt, Bruma, McEachran

 

Very tricky match.

Chelsea has been in a funk, but a team this talented will be dangerous after the sharp stick in the eye a couple days back.

Bolton realize this is a huge test, and have an extra, critical day of rest on Chelsea. That should help.

If you are a Bolton fan, you hope Chelsea slumbers on and for most of the game, Bolton gets early goal(s) to take crowd out, and learns to hold a lead would be nice.

Bolton has shown strong ability to come back from every deficit. So going down 1 goal should not kill them.

Is Bolton ready to take a step up in class here? Big, big mental test for Stu and the rest of the side. They better be ready from kickoff.
Chelsea is still too good to think they will start slowly.

I have feeling this will be very physical game- with Chelsea trying to impose their will early. Wouldn't be surprised to see some nasty fouls.
I hope Stu doesn't get caught in the melee. I hope Bolton can hold their cool, play their game, and play for 90 minutes with no silly mistakes.

 

Crap, no Lee. Don't like that. Lee and Holden play so well together.

I'd like to see Stu crack one from distance today. He's got the ability to score from distance.

 

It's also interesting to see that Rodrigo gets the start over Petrov when you consider it was a bit of a coup at the time that Bolton managed to sign him

 

I hope I'm wrong but I have a feeling Chelsea will take out their frustrations on Bolton today. This is just not a good matchup and their bad run has to end sometime.

 

Petrov is a liability on the right, especially away. Rodrigo has impressed in cameo appearances off the bench. Think this is the right decision.

 

SuperCoop - Lee is off to the Asia Cup apparently unavailable for a couple of weeks.

 

Obviously Holden could play on the right but that would mean breaking up the Holden/Muamba partnership which has been very fruitful this season. A Muamba/Mark Davies combo in centre midfield would get completely overrun by Chelsea.

Lee could be out for a month depending how well South Korea do.

 

I feel like Lampard is about to start Frankfest; could be troublesome for Bolton today. It will be a good experience for Stuart to play against Essien and Lampard.

 

Tamr Cohen's father also just passed away, I wonder what kind of impact that will have on the team. Positive, Negative, or perhaps not at all?

 

Can there possibly be a bigger test for Stu?

Playing 2 vs. 3 away in central midfield to a Chelsea team that was indestructable for years at home, mad as hell right now, and 2 of the 3 Stu is playing against would make a lot of people's top 10 midfielders in the world (Essian and Lampard).

If Bolton and Stu can hold their own in the middle, that would be amazing. As it were, I'd think (given Chelsea's numerical advantage in the middle), Bolton would be extremely pleased with 'bend not break'.

Hard to imagine Stu outshining those guys today, but if he can just keep it close enough.

Already 3 nice takaways by Stu. You just can't be sloppy around Stu...he'll take it every time.

 

Worst free kick I've seen.

 

nice free kick by Drogba

 

Knight must be under instructions to hit the ball high and long any time he gets it.

 

I'm not sure he is, he was doing this under Megson too. I think it's just habit.

 

Would you want Knight spending much time on the ball if you were his manager?