The defender, who was later to captain the Hornets, shares thoughts from the Bolton camp, and his own unique view of the first Watford goal.
‘It was past me too quickly, otherwise I would have handled it and taken the red card and conceded the penalty.’
Bolton had been frontrunners at the start of the season, and that 2-1 defeat to Watford on a Tuesday night in October was their first defeat of the season. “We knew Watford were a threat, and they went into the play-offs on the back of a really good run,” Cox recalled. “I don’t think it was Toddy trying to do that, it was more that financially the club was under pressure,” Cox explained.
“There was the chance after Robbo slipped which he put wide, and then Chambo made a really good save from Eidur after a free kick. “We’d done a lot of work on defending set plays because we knew the delivery from Peter Kennedy was very good,” he said.“My job, once it had gone over my head, was to get on the line and defend the far post.
“Watford had been on such a good run of form. I don’t think they’d been playing brilliantly but they were taking their chances and scoring goals, and clearly had very high confidence.In the Wanderers’ dressing after the first half, the mood was one of confidence still.“He just said we shouldn’t worry because we’d created chances and were getting into really good areas.
“We didn’t need to be getting opened up. Toddy has said not to go crazy early on in the second half, and then if it gets to the last 10 minutes and we need to chase the game, then we’ll do it.The closest Bolton came to getting level was when Gudjohnsen nipped in to prod the ball past the advancing Chamberlain, but ran wide of the back post with Robert Page shepherding it to safety.“Getting Gudjohnsen, who was such a great player, into a position like that, we expected a goal.
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