Mystery Signing's Dream Debut

I didn't know we bought a striker in the window. Seems we have signed Man Utd's second top scorer, Own Goal who scored two of our fours goals against a lacklustre Bolton side.

You usually know what to expect from Bolton. Eleven players of limited calibre, albeit with a lot of fight in them, who are never going to make it easy for our more cultured, softer players. Owen Coyle rested some of the 'extra limited' players and replaced them with 'regular limited' but you would still expect some fight from them.

It seems though Bolton not only rested players but also their heart and their balls. A limp performance from them put paid to their FA cup chances leaving them to concentrate on maintaining their top flight status. If performances don't improve from this one I would be very much worried for them.

Our victory was not purely down to our opponents ineptitude but also to us being very good on the day. A couple of changes left us with the expected Pav-JD strikeforce and Benny making his return to the first team deputising at right back.

Obviously with the lack of a 6'7 gentleman up top saw us play neater possession football which destroyed Bolton's rigid format. I have always defended Crouchinho, seeing him as an honest lad whose talents are often overlooked down to his bizarre appearance. However if this is how we play without him then his exclusion is on merit as opposed to popular demand from fans. Dawson's distribution was nice today with him and Bassong feeding the ball simply to the midfield as opposed to hoofing aimlessly.

Our domination of the midfield battle was too easy. These games are made for Hudd where he is able to establish time for himself, dictate tempo, switch play with astounding accuracy and generally own the midfield. However these games suit him, I remember a similar performance against West Ham earlier in the season only for him to bend over to the scousers at Anfield where he was not gifted such time and space. Hopefully he can follow up this performance with a similar one against the blue half of Merseyside on Sunday on what will be a vastly more intimidating showdown.

Bale was awesome...again...enough said. Benny simply has to perform miracles if he is to get ahead of him at left back. Back from injury and looking remarkaly like Snoop Dogg with his new facial fuzz (Bentley's poorly judged hobo look must have caused an impression) he had a relatively easy night in an unfamiliar position. Was good to see him return to action and will be interesting to see how Bale handles the added pressure of competition for his place.

Headlines will go to Pav with him scoring another brace, well and truly mugging Zat Knight for both. Two well taken clinical finishes yet Harry still failed to raise a smile but I don't care. Pav's upturn in form is similar to that of an angry Bobby Zamora and as long as Harry gives Super Pav a point to prove the better he seems to be. Gudjohnson also got a run out and looked good and even had a seemingly legit goal disallowed.

The fact we ended up with two left sided players on our right hand side shows how weak Bolton were on the day, but we dispatched them with the same worrying professionalism shown against Wigan. Surely we can't maintain such sensible performances... Everton on Sunday is massive but games like this must have done wonders for our confidence and a trip to Craven Cottage in a fortnight should be a cracker

Dare I say were on the way to Wembley??