Arsenal FC v Bolton Wanderers
Hello! How are you? Hope you’re doing well. On Wednesday September 25th at 19.45pm (western European time) sees the Wanderers of Bolton who reside in League 1, come a trotting down to our soft-southern climes and make a sortie at our shiny shed, as we play our first Carabao (League) cup game of the 2024/25 campaign.
Its a much revamped competition that’s been adjusted to accommodate a feathering in system of clubs with big Euro commitments. Of course the internet is a-wash with ‘debate’ as to whether this competition should be given the tin or an injection of some razzmatazz to make it more exciting. Its beyond me, but the importance of European games in recent years has tended to shove this competition into the shadows of gloom, that is until it gets to its latter stages and teams start to get a hungry glint in their eye for a piece of the silverware action. Over the years there’s been many exciting games and finals and poor old Arsenal have come-a-cropper many a time, much to our embarrassment. At one time there was even a specially designed League Cup ball, which in those days for us underwhelmed football lovers, was a big deal. Which I’m sure nowadays seems really sad. Good design though!
Bolton Wanderers (formed in 1874 and named in 1877), have won the FA Cup five times(and were in the first ever Wembley final and the famous ‘white horse’ final), but sadly haven’t won since François Truffaut made Le Quatre Cent Coups and propelled the Nouvelle Vague into the limelight. Our first cup game versus them was in 1895 and we lost 1-0 . It took until 1904 to beat them! Bolton were also runners up three times in that competition.
In the League Cup, Bolton have been runners up twice with one being a recent as 2004 when they lost to Boro and the other time losing 2-1 to Liverpool in 1995 (our old chum Bruce Rioch was manager for them that day). In 2005 they came 6th in the PL and qualified for the UEFA cup and notched up some great results in their campaigns.
Being a southern red-neck, I know nix about this club, which is dishonourable to them, but such is life as spoilt Arsenal fan, and I apologise for that. I recall Malcolm Macdonald scoring an amazing goal for Newcastle against them in the days of mutton-chop side-burns, 25 pints of larger, 3 steaks with chips and a shag before the game. Sadly, I recall Bolton beating us in 1994 in the FA cup fourth round replay, when we were the holders. I was there that night, we should have won, McGinlay looked offside, but we squandered our chances. Grrr! Bruce R was manager for Bolton that night too.
Nat Lofthouse was a main man for Bolton in the days of yore and has his own statue outside their stadium. Wenger’s old frosty pal Sam Allardyce played 184 times for them and managed them in the 1999-2007 period. I worked with a Bolton fan years ago, quite an ‘eccentric’ bloke, but the sort of oddball that was unaware of himself, luckily for him most of the bully-boys had got booted out at that point, otherwise he would have become minced trotter. Bolton is quite a strange name, its has nothing to do with the bolts in Frankenstein’s monsters neck but comes from ‘bothl-tun’, meaning settlement or dwelling. Bolton has a pretty interesting history and worth worth a gander over at wiki-sources he said sounding like a tool whose never been north of Watford. According to a survey in the mid 2000’s Boltonians are considered the most friendly people in Britain.
Bolton have had a poor run of form this season and the pressure (at the time of writing this) is all upon Ian Evatt their manager, so much that we might not even see him by the time the match is played. He has a 50% win rate a Bolton.
The B Wanderers beat Mansfield and Shrewsbury in order to make this date with us. They sit in 21st place (out of 24) in League 1 at this point ( three losses a win and a draw), unless Arteta plays the under-11’s I can’t see us losing this one but then we might be so nonchalant, spoilt and not bovverd that we could find a trotter booting our Arsenal. However it will be interesting to see who plays and who doesn’t…
Head to head we are : W 58 D 36 L 39.
Well that’s it, lots of bits and pieces that I’m sure have driven you into becoming a West Ham fan to escape from it.
Even so, here’s to a great game for us and lucky horses!
COYG and keep on keepin’ on!
Mills
Positively Arsenal 
Ah The Redskins – you know how to push my buttons don’t you Millsy? Brings back memories of my revolutionary youth.
Bolton in the third division though, that I didn’t know. They were once upon a time one of my most disliked sides. Not because they beat us very often, they didn’t, but because they played a huge part in creating the idea that you could kick Arsenal out of the game.
We had a manager with honour and principles who believed in playing within the rules. They had a guy who made a virtue of throwing shit in an art gallery.
It’s one of the reasons the new era of football is so hard to warm to. Everyone is cynical, everyone applauds the shithousery, everyone wants to be just like the beast they try to slay.
Arsene loved to see his players enjoying themselves – he once said that was what made all his obsessive hard work worthwhile. There is no place in the modern game for such a beautiful ideal. In truth there wasn’t back then either. Witness the savagery with which his players were regularly kicked from the pitch and into an ambulance.
Anyway, I’m sounding like a rambling old man, basking in nostalgia for a lost love. We have what we have today. A highly polished version of George Graham’s Arsenal, and I’m an Arsenal fan so I’ll make the best of it.
Thank you Millsy.
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Youre welcome Stew and many thanks. You don’t sound like a rambling old man at all-not that there’s anything wrong with that, to me your viewpoints are pertinent and important, if we don’t have dignity what do we have, and the PL (etc) seems to severely lacking in it?
Hopefully a lot of the lads will get a rest tonight and we can see some newer talent on show.
COYG!
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Considering you say you don’t know much about their club that was a brilliant preview Millsey.
The only thing I know about the area is through my Nanny Bolton who’s family travelled south during the depression washing people’s doorsteps on the way for money.
It is quite ironic that at a time when we are being criticized for the dark arts we are playing a team who’s history, as Steww says, is steeped in how to play crap football in the crappiest of ways but now play football along the floor and out from the keeper.
Apart from all the Fat Sam shenanigans and the frustrating draws at their place my most vivid memory was of Alex Iwobi’s uncle flipping the ball from behind him over his head and over Ray Parlours. I think the Romford Pele is still trying to find where it went to this day.
Another irony is, because of possible injury to Raya and Retford and the Neto already playing in the competition, of all the 46 Goalkeepers Edu and Mikel have brought we might need to play 16 year old Jack Porter from the start.
Usually Mikel doesn’t like playing youngsters but because of the riggers of the start of the season, injuries and sale of last season’s bench, he may well be forced to.
While every manager says they want to win every competition, I would imagine their will be a few CL managers (Mikel included) that wouldn’t mind an early exit to this one bearing in mind the extra games this season.
The trouble is a league two team at home is not the place to do it.
I hope this is like the days of Arsene, when a decent victory could be achieved with talented youngsters and a few senior heads. Remember when Arsene took a second string side to the final of this cup and nearly beat a full strength money ladden chelski. After going ahead we were only pegged back by an offside goal and an very incompetent set of officials who were suspected of being paid by the richest owner in the land.
How times have changed COYG.
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Thanks Ian, great post too.
I’m starting to look forward to the game tonight. The City 2nd half was so intense my blood pressure went through the roof and I was so gutted by the equaliser that I could be bovvered with tv or any of that crap afterwards, it kind of left an ‘orrible hangover but here we go again!
COYG!
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Thanks Mills – another fine preview. Not all the players I played with were the sharpest tools and I remember a long and inconsequential chat about palindromes as we whiled away a rainy afternoon. Said player, who must remain nameless, excited about the concept and anxious to add his own contribution to the place name competition proudly came up with Bolton. And so he remained Notlob for the rest of the season, and I think of him every time the Wanderers are mentioned.
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Goodness me – what a moment for him if Jack Porter does make his debut. With luck he’ll be young enough not to have discovered the notion of nerves yet, and let’s hope the Bolton side are even less bothered about the result than we might be, though I suspect a televised game at the Emirates will be enough for them to want to put on a show. It could be a tricky evening, but I’m looking forward to it as I haven’t had much chance to watch us this season.
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Thanks Heady! COYG!
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FT: Arsenal 5-1 Bolton
Rice, Nwaneri x2, Sterling, Havertz with our goals
Jack porter became the youngest goalie to play for our first team, think Nwaneri became the youngest player to score two goals for the first team.
Porter, Nichols, Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly all made their full debuts, (as did Sterling) and subs Kacurri and Kabia made their debuts
Maldini Kacurri, bound to be a defender with that name, joined Arsenal a couple of years ago after he was released by Fulham as a shoolboy, he had a trial at AFC and impressed big time with his tough no nonsense tackling and general defending, the Academy coaches signed him up cos they felt his sort of defending allowed the others to play their football, so glad to see him progress to the first team, he has really impressed for the U21’s this season so far.
Kabia is a lighting quick winger, who has had a bad time from injury, but now he is fit he is impressing for the U21’s
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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GYWcRRlX0AAGNEP?format=jpg&name=4096×4096
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That was all rather fun. I was particularly impressed by the way the older players protected our goalkeeper, seemingly understanding the need not to put him under any pressure. It wasn’t until Gabriel came on that he had a difficult back pass to deal with – but he was able to do so by then. It was really good to see the seniors treating the Hale End boys with such respect and encouragement, and as a result they visibly grew in confidence. It was a useful run out for Sterling too, so alongside the comfortable win a lot of boxes were ticked.
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I realise that this is unlikely, but if anyone has access to The Daily Telegraph I see there is an article about Ethan Nwaneri, but it’s behind a paywall and I’d be interested to know what it says.
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Sorry Heady, can’t help on that one, it might come up in a news feed in some days though?
I agree that it was a great night though, and really enjoyable, and gets us on winning ways and on to the Leicester game. Could do with a few more like that.
COYG!
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Yep it was a great night with loads to enjoy. As I said before the game watching youth players play well and record a good victory was excellent and something we haven’t been able to enjoy for years.
I did think it was a bit strange starting Saka and Rice, the two players that have possibly played the most minutes over the last couple of seasons.
It was a shame the game showed Jesus and Sterling are still not quite up to speed although hopefully the game time will give them confidence going forward. I really hope the pair especially Jesus are just out of form and not something more permanent.
Amongst all the plaudits for Nwaneri, I do hope he doesn’t believe in his own hype. Certainly at the start of the game he was trying to do too much and holding on to the ball when simple passes were available. Having said this he needs to retain his confidence and his swagger, I suppose it’s a fine line which he will learn with maturity.
The two young full backs were excellent going forward and both played some excellent passes. Talking of excellent passes, what about Jorginio, the full range was on show last night and you could see his eliteness with his technical ability.
His only fault the whole game was when they left him at the back to cover breakaways. Our slowest player was always going to be in trouble once Bolton cleared their lines.
All in all it was a very successful night after a near perfect week.
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Perfect summary Ian.
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New post is up.
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