Bolton boss Gary Megson says striker Johan Elmander finally shone against Middlesbrough in the way everyone at the club knew he was capable of.
Elmander capped off a workmanlike display with a 78th-minute goal to find the scoresheet for the first time since his debut on the opening day and Megson said he was delighted by his contribution.
He said: "I am really delighted with the goal that he got. It was a great goal from his point of view and from ours, but it was more important that he got it.
"When he came off he was absolutely shattered. I said to him that I have never been more pleased for somebody to score a goal because his performances have been terrific.
"Today his quality was there for everybody to see, but he is judged on goals as all centre-forwards are."
Megson praised his entire team's display, but said he believes his players were only able to forge ahead for the third goal after Middlesbrough had reduced the arrears to 2-1.
He added: "I think we got off to a great start but in a strange way we will take that every time.
"But when we went 2-0 up we didn't play anything like what we can play. We went a little bit deep and there was a little bit of a reticence to get ourselves forward and push on from there because we were massively on top.
"Middlesbrough are on a good run and we allowed them to come on to us and I didn't feel, certainly in the first half, that we were under any great threat.
"You can't continually, even if you are 2-0 up, keep inviting an opposition on to you and although it's a great afternoon for us, I am not sure we would have got the third goal if we hadn't conceded the first because when they did that we suddenly lifted the game back to what we should have done and we scored immediately."
The Bolton boss insists his team still do not get the credit they deserve, but he says the side are still moving forward.
"In terms of work rate and high intensity, both with and without the ball, we are as high as anybody in the Premiership," Megson said, "but technically at times we let ourselves down, but I do feel we are capable of doing better.
"We are in a position where we are trying to keep taking the club forward long-term and to enable us to be able to do that in the short-term we have to be successful because we are still a football club that is in transition.
"We have to keep getting results to enable ourselves to improve."
0 comments:
Post a Comment