Owen Coyle's post-match comments following the home fixture against Crystal Palace
Owen Coyle felt that Saturday’s contest against Crystal Palace was a game of penalties – one that was given and one that wasn't.
Glenn Murray scored from the spot on 79 minutes, but the Bolton manager believed that his side should have had one earlier in the game when the ball apparently made contact with the hand of Darcy Blake inside the Palace penalty area.
“It’s frustrating, obviously, with the decisions that led to us losing the game,” said Coyle.
“We were in the ascendency in the first half, accepting that Crystal Palace were dangerous with the pace they have on the counter-attack.
“We’ve had a clear penalty not given in the first half – Mark Davies arrived in the box and it hit a player on the hands. I actually thought it was Speroni, given the way he had his arms above his head.
“It wasn’t given and then in the second half we had a soft penalty awarded against us. Zaha went driving into the box, Zat Knight goes to step across and the lad’s legs have hit Zat.
“It gave us little time to recover and it’s hard to take because, if the truth be told, we were the team that had picked up the pace of the game and we created a number of chances to go in front.
“In the first half there wasn’t a lot going on, but we came out after half-time and raised the tempo. We had a good 15-20 minute period and should have scored.
“The worst we should have come out of that game is 0-0, so it’s frustrating, especially after going away from home last week and giving ourselves a platform going into two home games.
“Stephen Warnock came in today and played very well, and there were times where we got in behind the Palace defence. There were positives but the huge disappointment is the result and not picking up any points.
“We will deal with today’s disappointment and get ourselves back in tomorrow morning to get ourselves ready for Leeds, where we have to stand up and be counted against a very good side.”