Neil Lennon - We deserved to win the game

Manager also left frustrated with referee's performance in draw with Reading at Macron Stadium

Neil Lennon feels his side were unlucky not to claim all three points after being held to a 1-1 draw against Reading at Macron Stadium.

Wanderers were forced in to three first-half substitutions, with Kevin McNaughton, David Wheater and Zach Clough all leaving the field through injury.

After the restart Eidur Gudjohnsen opened the scoring, but Bolton were denied all three points by a late Jamie Mackie goal.

“I’m very pleased with the way our players performed this evening,” Lennon said. “Considering what we had to put up with tonight, with injuries and refereeing decisions going against us, we did well.

“I can’t fault any of the effort or performances from the lads. We gave it our all and I thought we were the better side, particularly in the second half.

“It’s cruel to lose the goal in the way we did. There was a lot of luck on their part involved, but we have to do better when trying to see games out. This is a couple of times now where we’ve been caught out.

“The ricochet falls to Jamie Mackie and he’s hit a speculative effort from distance and it has gone in. It’s unfortunate, but it just seems to be where we are now.

“We deserved a lot better from the game, there’s no doubting that.

“We felt the refereeing performance was inconsistent for both sides. At one stage he actually awarded us a throw in, Reading then took it and he let play go on.

“I don’t feel our players were properly protected by the officials. We’ve lost another three players with injury as well which is very frustrating.

“Kevin McNaughton is clattered right in front of the linesman early on and play is waved on. The same happens on Zach later in the half.

“We’ll have to assess the injuries. Kevin has a problem with his lower leg and it looks as if Zach has dislocated his shoulder. David Wheater has also gone off with a hamstring strain.

“We shouldn’t get downbeat about things because our performances are improving. We’ll go away, assess where we are and look to our next period of fixtures.”

Tweets by @OfficialBWFC
Read Time: 2 mins