Parkinson Happy with Bolton’s Response against Millwall

Bolton Wanderers manager Phil Parkinson praised the club’s response to suffering back-to-back defeats.

The club managed to recover from the 1-0 losses against Cheltenham Town and Peterborough United in the best possible fashion after securing a 2-0 home victory over Millwall. It was an extremely important result that keeps the club in the hunt for the title. Even though they are six points behind table leaders Scunthorpe United, the possibility of finishing second still is an attractive proposition for the club which has faced huge financial problems in recent years.

The League One outfit were certainly helped by the early goal scored by Joshua Vela in the 17th minute. The game was dominated by Bolton in the attacking sense, and it was not surprising that they were the home team with the impetus to push forward. Millwall do not manage any shots on target in the entire 90 minutes. It helped Bolton keep a clean sheet in the game.

Parkinson will be hoping to improve the clean sheet record of the team. With just two clean sheets in the last five matches, it is certainly not the kind of defensive performance expected from a team with title aspirations.

Parkinson says that it is extremely important to recover in the best possible manner from a defeat and it shows the character of the players."When you lose a game the response is always important. We have had a couple of setbacks this week with injuries to Mark (Howard) and Wheats (David Wheater).Today we knew we would have an extra man in midfield and space to pass the ball and tire the legs of their front players. We did that tremendously well, certainly in the first half an hour.Spearo was immense with his calmness on the ball as well as his heart which is unquestioned," said Parkinson about the performance from his team and Jay Spearing.