Before entering the Riverside my confidence was high, 2-0’s and 2-1’s all around to the Boro amongst fans predictions, but a slight bit pessimism and concern had to enter your thoughts before predicting a Boro win.10 Minutes in and the game was won, I seem to remember β€˜that’ game last season in the FA cup was like for like with this one. For some strange reason I didn’t want to give up hope, I wanted Boro to bite back in a comeback fashion but Bolton showed too much resilience.

The first goal was shocking, yes granted Pogatetz’s foul on Elmander warranted a free kick but not a yellow card. The result from that? Crap marking allowed Grentar Steinsson to score a free header only for it ricochet of Kevin Davies back. Within 2 minutes later they did it again, 1 touch from Matt Taylor was enough to slice open the back four and allow an all left footed player score with his right.

We made an attempt to fight back, but with poor passing and lack of movement restricted us in our player. We had to rely on the quick players and catch them on counter attack but because Bolton had already score 2 they didn’t need to press against us so we had to improvise our attacks and boy did that not work. Gary O’Neil was denied his 3rd of the season by having a clearance off the line by skipper Kevin Nolan. Alves attempted to square it to Downing who was poaching around the box, only to be well cleared by the Bolton defence.

Boro weren’t blessed with chances in the first half, so it was a case of dusting ourselves down and listening to the manager to implement a new tact.

Bolton still had that resilient, confident swagger whereas any Boro attack came about pretty much nothing materialised still due to the lack of productivity and flair.

On the cusp of the beginning of the end for Boro, captain Poggy did what any Boro fan and player of course would want to do, smash the ball in the back of the net and give us hope.

This did happen for a brief amount of time, only for Swedish international Johan Elmander to score his 2nd of the season and really sticking to the Boro much to everybody’s annoyance.

This is not a dig at Southgate but we are no good at chasing the game, the only times we do actually chase the game and get level we stay put almost satisfied with the draw. This season so far the only team to have scored first and Boro to get 1 point or more is West Ham, last season however saw Newcastle (twice), Sunderland (twice), Spurs (twice), Reading and Man Utd.

Things need to change, we need to bounce back and be ready for what lies ahead on Saturday.