Bolton progressed to the 5th round of the FA Cup after coming from behind against Swansea at the Reebok Stadium.
Unfortunately a crowd of 11,597 left many empty seats at the ground, and early on those who'd given this a miss weren't missing anything. Swansea had made many changes to their side with one eye on their midweek match against Chelsea, and the attacking style of football they've been praised for lately was not in evidence here as they seemed happy to focus on stopping Bolton from creating chances.
Some of the few chances they did manage to create fell to Ngog and Eagles - Ngog wasted his opportunities, and Eagles fired wide and had another effort saved.
And then, approaching half time, Swansea appeared to suddenly smell blood, and a poor encounter began to come to life. Around the 40th minute, Wayne Routledge put the ball into the net from close range, but celebrations were halted by the linesman's flag. However they continued their spell of pressure, and in the 43rd minute Luke Moore received the ball, ran at goal and looped a close range lob over the keeper. The away side were ahead after doing nothing for the opening 40 minutes.
Swansea's fans chanted "Pratley, what's the score?", having a dig at the Bolton player who left them last summer. He came up with the best possible response, heading the ball in from close range right at the end of the half, and credit to him he didn't celebrate in respect to his former club, despite their fans having just been goading him. 1-1 it was at half time.
Swansea had the first opportunity of the second half with Luke Moore shooting wide from range, and then Bolton exerted a spell of pressure of their own, and were rewarded by a goalkeeping mistake. Petrov had a fairly optimistic effort from wide left straight at the Swansea keeper, who failed to gather the ball properly and spilled it to Chris Eagles, who tapped in to the right corner to put Bolton 2-1 ahead.
The game became quite open from that point, with both clubs looking for another goal. Lita hit the woodwork for Swansea and Pratley did the same at the other end, and Reo-Coker found the side netting as Bolton tried to build on their lead.
Brendan Rodgers brought on a couple of first team regulars for Swansea including Danny Graham midway through the second half, and late on they pressed forward and gave the home fans a number of heart in mouth moments, the biggest of which was when Graham got on the end of a cross right near the end of the game, his header bouncing back off the post rather than finding the net. Bolton hung on to the win, and face a long trip South to either face Millwall or Southampton in the next round, depending on who wins in the replay between the two Championship clubs.
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