Bolton boss Ian Evatt was full of admiration for his players after they moved to second in League One with a 2-0 win at Fleetwood.
In swirling winds and driving rain, Evatt hailed his side’s application as they dominated their hosts and took the points with second-half goals by Dion Charles and Victor Adeboyejo.
And the manager could not disguise his delight after Wanderers completed 2023 with three straight wins.
“I’m really proud of the players tonight,” he said. “That was a really professional, clinical performance in awful conditions.
“We always look to the past to judge our journey and how far we’ve come. I think in years gone by we wouldn’t have performed as we did tonight in these conditions.
“We didn’t panic in the first half when we had all the pressure, all the shots and all the domination.
“The goals didn’t go in but at half-time we just spoke about being calm and executing what we’re capable of in the second half and we went out and did that and we kept them at arm’s length in awful conditions, so that’s a proper away performance.
“We’re not always going to have it our own way but what we’ve managed to do is find different ways to win football matches. These conditions tonight are as bad as it gets for football and the way we want to play but I was so proud of the way we went about our business.
“We know what we need to do on nights like these, we know when to build and play and be expansive and we also know when to utilise the front lads, play into good areas and play for territory.
“There’s no right or wrong way to win football matches, it’s all about winning and that’s what we’ve done.”
Fleetwood manager Lee Johnson admitted his side are struggling at present, having not won since mid-November, but he insists they can drag themselves away from trouble in the second half of the season.
“It was a tough game,” he said. “We knew the quality that Bolton have and they’re a well established side that are up there. They’ve had time to build, it’s a good club, an ex-Premier League club, but we felt at half-time that we had a good chance.
“We’d defended ever so well in treacherous conditions and the spirit was good, we’re not affecting boxes anywhere near enough, we know that, and we have to because obviously wins are very important.
“But we came out for the second half believing conditions were in our favour. You’ve got to give credit to Bolton, but in the end we were masters of our own downfall again, with individual errors.
“And that feels a bit like the story of the calendar year for us and if we want to get out of trouble they’re the bits that we have to stop.
“I’m certainly up for the fight. We’ve got 23 games now and we’re going to need a number of wins so the first thing we need to do is stop the individual errors.”
Arsenal 3-0 Nottingham Forest: Saka shines on Arteta's landmark outing
Bukayo Saka’s inspired performance helped Arsenal return to winning ways in Mikel Arteta’s 250th game in charge as they swept aside Nottingham Forest 3-0 on Saturday.
Saka scored one and set up another to cap a fine individual display in what was an excellent team performance from the Gunners.
Having danced into the box to drill home a crisp finish for the opener, Saka turned provider for Thomas Partey early in the second half, with the midfielder curling the ball into the left-hand corner.
Ethan Nwaneri combined with fellow substitute Raheem Sterling to slide home his first Premier League goal and add further gloss late on.
Arsenal’s victory saw them go level with Chelsea on 22 points, but they remain in fourth place, while Forest drop down to sixth after back-to-back league defeats.
Data Debrief: Gunners reach landmark triumph
Arsenal have often relied on Saka to produce moments of magic since his integration into the first-team, and it seemed fitting that his display would help the Gunners to their 2,000th victory in English top-flight history.
Only Liverpool's Mohamed Salah (14) has been involved in more Premier League goals this season than Saka (12 – four goals, eight assists), with his impressive performance backed up by the match statistics.
The England international registered more shots (six) and more touches in the opposition box (13) than any of his team-mates, while his four chances created was a total only bettered by Martin Odegaard (six).
But there was also a special moment for substitute Nwaneri. At 17 years and 247 days, he is now Arsenal's second-youngest Premier League goalscorer, behind only Cesc Fabregas against Blackburn Rovers in August 2004 (17y 113d).
Verona 0-5 Inter: Five-star visitors go top of Serie A
Inter hammered lowly Verona 5-0 away from home on Saturday to move top of the Serie A table, with all five goals coming in the first half.
The hosts could easily have taken the lead through Casper Tengstedt just six minutes in as he struck the post after causing chaos in the box, but Inter sparked to life after that.
Joaquin Correa rattled the crossbar moments later, and then opened the scoring after 17 minutes, finishing off a lovely team move by chipping Lorenzo Montipo.
Having set up the opener, Marcus Thuram added a quick-fire double; twice in three minutes, he took the goalkeeper out of the game with clever play before picking out the back of the net.
Substitute Stefan de Vrij fired their fourth past Montipo before Yann Bisseck managed to pick out the top corner despite initially tripping over the ball in the 41st minute.
The second half was a subdued affair, though Correa almost scored another, but instead smacked the crossbar for a second time.
Inter leapfrogged Napoli, who do not play until Sunday, as they moved into first with 28 points. Verona are 14th on 12 points.
Data Debrief: Full-throttle first half
It was a pretty much perfect first half from Simone Inzaghi's side, and it gave the manager a chance to rest some key players with a Champions League tie ahead of them in midweek.
Inter scored five goals in the first half of an away league game for only the second time in their history in Serie A - after the 5-1 score against Sampdoria in the first 45 minutes of play back in March 1964.
The visitors scored with all five of their shots on target in the first period and outperformed their 2.79 expected goals (xG) by some margin.
Correa has scored in a Serie A game 756 days after his last goal in the top-flight, on 29th October 2022, against Sampdoria, at Meazza. Meanwhile, all three of his away goals have come against Verona at Bentegodi.
Chelsea not focused on Liverpool and Man City, insists Jackson after Leicester win
Chelsea are not getting carried away by talk of a title challenge following their 2-1 win over Leicester City, according to striker Nicolas Jackson.
Jackson netted his seventh Premier League goal of the season and was joined on the scoresheet by Enzo Fernandez on Saturday, as Enzo Maresca got one over on his former club at the King Power Stadium.
The result lifted the Blues to 22 points in third, just one adrift of champions Manchester City in second and six behind leaders Liverpool.
Speaking to TNT Sports after the game, Jackson said: "We know the months of November and December have a lot of games, so we just try to recover for the next one and go again.
"I saw the danger, then the ball came to Enzo, he gave it to me and he finished. I'm just working in every game to try to help the team win."
Asked if Chelsea were now thinking of themselves as title challengers, he added: "No, we don't look at the teams in front of us, we just try to win every game."
Five of Jackson's goals this season have come on the road, the most of any player in the Premier League.
Since the start of May, only Erling Haaland (18) has bettered Jackson's 11 goals in the competition overall.
Leicester got a stoppage-time consolation through Jordan Ayew's penalty, though they earlier felt aggrieved not to be awarded a spot-kick when Stephy Mavididi was seemingly felled by Wesley Fofana in the 85th minute.
Boss Steve Cooper lamented that call, saying: "We've had some terrible luck with this referee. That continued today.
"There's also the game to talk about. Tough first half in terms of Chelsea territory and dominance with the ball. We gave away a poor goal. It should have been 0-0.
"Defensively we were generally okay. We need to be showing courage and belief. If we do that we can create chances and be a threat.
"The big moment is the first penalty not given, it's clear what happened there. The second one was offside [before VAR] and you see how onside he was.
"That was the story of the officials' game. You can speak to them after 30 minutes. I'm not sure if I will or won't."
SportsMax is the Caribbean sports channel of choice, committed to providing sporting content of the highest quality to the Caribbean, delivered by a team of highly innovative, passionate and qualified professionals.
(876) 619-7629
digitalmedia@sportsmax.tv
