Bolton Wanderers were knocked out of the Emirates FA Cup in the Fourth Round at the hands of Bristol City, in a 2-1 defeat on Friday evening.
Wanderers took the lead early on, as Luca Connell superbly picked out Mark Beevers with a cross into the area, as the defender calmly slotted it past Fielding with a first time volley.
The Robins came back into the tie immediately, as Callum O’Dowda shot powerfully into the bottom left corner, leaving Matthews helpless.
Following this on the half hour mark, Niclas Eliasson cut in from the right flank and curled his effort into the top corner with some conviction.
After the final whistle, manager Phil Parkinson spoke to bwfc.co.uk and covered these topics…
On his assessment of the game as a whole…
“I am very proud of the performance tonight, I thought we were excellent.”
“Two kids came in in Luca Connell and Joe Pritchard and did very well.
“We changed the shape of the team and Wheats got a knock yesterday in training and Marc Wilson pulled up in the warm-up, so we were two centre-halves down.
“We asked Mark Little, who was due to come in at full back, to come into the middle which shows we have had some disruption as we threw a different shape at the lads.
“We felt we had to press them and get higher up the pitch than we did last time.
“There were countless opportunities and got into some great positions to get at least a draw and a replay at our place.
“Last time we came here, we could have lost by four or five, as we were too open.
“Tonight was the exact opposite despite the score line being the same.
“I just said to the lads we have to believe in ourselves.
“Looking back to West Brom, we believed in ourselves on the ball and I am pleased with that.
“All in all, the manner of the performance was top class tonight.”
On the performances of Luca Connell and Joe Pritchard…
“Luca was brilliant tonight. Him and Pritch deserve their opportunity in this fixture.”
“Luca has been very good in the Under-18s and the Under-23s and Pritch has been excellent also in the development group.
“We wanted to use Joe a bit earlier but due to the embargo, we were unable to.
“I just said to him that he may not have had as many touches as Luca tonight, but sometimes in that position you do not.
“What he did do was three or four class things on the ball and I am very pleased for him.”
On being able to take positives into Tuesday’s game against Reading…
“We have two bonus players in Luca and Joe and we’ve looked at Nooney at left wing back tonight.”
“I feel he can do that job for us and Remi got a game under his belt, as Ben has a few problems currently.
“We have a few disruptions but despite all that, we have kept concentrated and we put in a very good performance tonight.”