RUSSELL: WE WEREN'T RUTHLESS ENOUGH

Manager frustrated with Easter Monday defeat to Trotters

Cardiff City manager Russell Slade reflected on “a bad day at the office” as a clinical second-half performance from Bolton Wanderers consigned the Bluebirds to an Easter Monday defeat at Cardiff City Stadium.

“It was a huge disappointment today,” Russell said. “There haven’t been many of those in recent weeks, and even in the first half, nobody would have seen that coming.

"We weren’t ruthless, and though we had the defensive structure in the first half, we let that go. That’s what’s been the hallmark of recent games, where we’d made ourselves difficult to beat.

“Bolton have a wealth of experience, and they were clinical. That proved to be the difference. We were getting balls into the box with varying levels of quality, and we’re missing one or two of our big men up front, in Kiko Macheda, and for Alex Revell to go off was a big blow.

"You want to try and play to your players’ strengths, and having to go with three different line-ups of strikers during the course of the day was a challenge.”

Former Chelsea and Barcelona striker Eiður Guðjohnsen opened the scoring before Wales international Craig Davies fired a brace as the Trotters took up a potent counter-attacking approach in the second period.

But the Cardiff manager felt his side might have better dealt with the goals they let in, reflecting:“We’ve looked at the goals, and we’ve been suckered for two on them on the counter-attack.

“Craig Davies had another couple of chances other than the two goals he scored, but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t have our chances.

“We managed to get a great goal on Saturday against Reading, and there are certainly a lot of others capable of that in our squad other than those who weren’t available. Hopefully we’ll have Conor McAleny back on Saturday.

“Today was a down day on the back of some very good performances. As a group we need to bounce back, and it was a blow, there’s no doubt about that, because we wanted to finish the season in style. Today was a bitter disappointment.