Confident performance highlights squad depth.

Despite missing Robin van Persie, Theo Walcott and Thomas Vermaelen through injury and Bacary Sagna and Gael Clichy due to squad rotation, we still dominated posession and created a glut of chances against a highly motivated Bolton side.

Laurent Koscielny's poor back pass presented Bolton with their equaliser just before half time and it was another match which clearly defined our strengths and weaknesses. It had been a largely competent defensive performance against the unique combination of Kevin Davies' elbows and commendable efforts from Owen Coyle to play slightly more football on the ground. However, Koscielny's mis-directed header back to Almunia could potentially have cost us three points.

Fortunately though we were on top attacking form despite losing two of our most creative players to injury. We opened the scoring when Koscielny bundled home following good work from former Bolton loanee, Jack Wilshere. Andrei Arshavin also missed two golden opportunities in the opening half and Cesc Fabregas put in a much improved performance, finishing the match with three assists.

Despite the scores being level at half time, we continued to pour forward without any reservations and Fabregas and Marouane Chamakh combined twice for our second goal. Firstly the captain guided an exquisite through ball into the Moroccan's path our new signing's strike was palmed away by Bolton's busy debutant, Bogdan.

However, from the resulting corner Fabregas found himself by the by-line and this time his expert delivery was given the headed finish it deserved by the impressive Chamakh.

We continued to carve out chances but it wasn't until the 78th minute that victory was assured. A well worked move ended in Alexandre Song dinking a perfectly weighted chip over the onrushing 'keeper from an acute angle. Song emerged from the tunnel in the second half like a man posessed and a goal was the least he deserved.

Carlos Vela added gloss to the scoreline with an assured finish following a stunning 20+ pass move which involved the whole team passing the ball around with impressive pace and purpose.

The main moment of controversy came in the 64th minute when Gary Cahill was harshly dismissed for an unnecessary lunge from behind on Chamakh. It followed an obvious foul by Alex Song so Owen Coyle was understandably upset but it shouldn't take away from the fact that Paul Robinson's horrific challenge on Abou Diaby that forced the Frenchman to be substituted was left unpunished. It was a poor performance from ref Stuart Attwell but our 23 attempts on goal to Bolton's 7 proved our superior quality should have prevailed even without the aid of Attwell.

Photo: Action Images

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