In their Premiership fixture against Leicester last night, Bolton won themselves few fans with their insistence on playing two players in an 'offside' position pending the taking of a free kick. The two players then ran back into the pack of players before seeing the Bolton attackers look for the ball when played into the box.
It was a move that paid dividends with the confusion in the defence leading to a series of mistakes, culminating in the biggest of all from Ian Walker when he fumbled the ball into the back of the net to earn Wanderers a point. It was tactics that went down badly with the Leicester fans in the Walkers Stadium but, claimed manager Sam Allardyce, it is just exploiting what he calls a crazy rule introduced by FIFA.
Allardyce told Sky Sports 2: "We had a look at the new regulations and we've got to use them to our benefit.
"I don't like them, I think they detract from the game, but it's not the referees' fault, it's FIFA's, they've got it horribly wrong but we've got to use it to our advantage the way we used it to upset Leicester.
"What we do is try all we can to make life difficult for the opposition and we're probably one of the first to start implementing it and one or two more are going to have a look at it, but we could end up with a situation where 22 players are in the box for a free-kick and that is not in the spirit of the game whatsoever.
"I don't like it personally, referees don't like it and the FA should look at it and put our case forward and show common sense. "
And while the rules are there I expect to see more sides following Allardyce's tactic and it may well be that we see one of the sides on Saturday adopting the tactic to try and create enough confusion to get a crucial goal which could see either side head to the quarter finals of the FA Cup.
You can imagine a free kick being hit in and Brad Maylett and Leon Britton in 'offside positions' before running back distracting the Tranmere defence enough to let Lee Trundle come through and score the winner with two minutes to go can't you?
It is a crazy rule and one that is certainly creating more problems than it is solving. The traditionalists will say that you are either offside or you aren't and there is no in between whilst it also brings out the old football quote that if you aren't interfering with play then what the hell are you doing on the pitch.
Aside from that I suspect that the conversation should take place as to whether the Swans will look to adopt this tactic on Saturday and if they do then expect some confusion, some barracking and one hell of a lot of head scratching amongst the supporters. | 
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