Aftermath: Bolton vs. United

FIRST! For the second weekend in a row, I was overseas. I promise I won't make a habit of it!

Yeah. I went to Indonesia this time.

Unfortunately, this weekend, I was sitting in the Soekarno-Hatta Jakarta International Airport and I couldn't catch the game at all. But boy, am I pissed about what I heard when I touched down.

The Breakdown
Bolton 2-2 United
Basically, we drew. Again. And we had to come back from behind twice to draw this time. This isn't great, guys.

Nani and Owen (!!!) both providing equalisers to Zat Knight and Martin Petrov strikes.



But it was not to be, and we had to settle for a 2-2 draw away from home.

We also pick up a couple of injuries—which don't (apparently) seem to be too serious, but still.

Reaction
I have to rely on reading other people's post-match reports to post any sort of reactionary opinions, but I could still talk about our failure to win away from home this season.

Sure, we won against Scunthorpe (5-2) and that was away from home. (Incidentally, they didn't show that game in Malaysia. Awesome country, right?) But 3 consecutive away draws in the Premier League? Manchester United isn't a club which has built itself on going on trips to other clubs scraping draws and clawing ourselves back.

When it comes to playing at Old Trafford, in front of 75,000 adoring fans, it seems like we find it easier to secure victory against opponents. Yet, when the patch of grass that our team plies its trade on is located in the stadiums of others—be it Craven Cottage, Goodison Park or, as it was tonight, the Reebok Stadium—we seem to... not be able to win.

But! We haven't lost, either. Which is some measly form of consolation we can take away from this. Chelsea lost to City (cue triumphant music) and Arsenal "slipped up" at home against West Brom. That means we move up into 2nd and are only 3 points behind. Not a complete disaster.

Where We Stood, Where We Stand
As I said, we move up to second, and it is a mathematical possibility for us to go top next weekend as we play on Saturday and Chelsea don't play 'til Sunday.

But, uh, their goal difference is slightly better than ours. Ours/anyone in the whole entire damn globe whose season started around the same time as in England. So I'm guessing being level on points come Saturday night would be what we're hoping for!

1|Chelsea|6|15|+19
2|UNITED|6|12|+7
3|Arsenal|6|11|+9
4|Man City|6|11|+5
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5|Aston Villa|6|10|-2