Coyle disappointed with ´self-inflicted´ loss

Bolton boss Owen Coyle has warned he will make changes if the individual errors that led to Monday’s 2-0 loss to Newcastle United continue.

Goals from substitute Hatem Ben Arfa and Demba Ba in two second-half minutes gave United their first victory in seven games, keeping them on the heels of Liverpool and Arsenal on the English Premier League table.

Both goals came after Bolton lost the ball in their own half through unforced mistakes, leaving Coyle frustrated and looking for change in his side’s performances.

“A mixture of frustration, anger, whatever you call it,” he said when asked of his feelings after the match.

“We’ve given the ball away under no pressure. Take nothing away from the finish; the cut-back, the finish from the lad (Ben Arfa) – that was exquisite.”

“At 1-0 there’s still 20 minutes left, you’re looking for a bit of character and we had that from a few. But truth be told, (there were) not enough, whether one or two were fragile, there’s no need for that coming off the back of a big win (against Blackburn last Tuesday).”

“Then … two minutes later it’s a horrible mistake – that then gives you a load to do. The two goals are self-inflicted and that’s hard to take.”

“(The) bottom line is there’s one or two that have tried to play through. I’ve chopped and changed, tried to give a vat of freshness, but there comes a point when we’re getting one or two back off injury or some of the kids are ready, then so be it. I’m not going to stand and watch the same mistakes costing us every week.”

Having been delighted with the 2-1 defeat of fellow relegation battlers Blackburn Rovers, Coyle was desperately unhappy to see another opportunity to win squandered.

“It’s frustrating because we’ve let a great opportunity pass us by in terms of getting back-to-back wins and we’ve let ourselves down again and in front of our own fans – the biggest crowd of the season,” he said.

“If you’d have said to me before the game, ‘Who’s going to win it?’, I may be biased, but I’d have said us. That win would have put us amongst five or six teams and made it very interesting.”

Newcastle manager Alan Pardew was delighted to taste victory after nearly two months without a win.

“Yes we are (delighted), because we put ourselves under pressure with the West Brom result, so it was important today that we give a more disciplined performance and we did that,” he said.

“We felt that the last two games that four points would have been really pleasing. We didn’t manage to get anything with West Brom (in a 3-2 loss last Wednesday), but we got three valuable ones today.”

“In the Premier League, you don’t want to create pressure for yourselves as a team by having a winless run that we were on. We felt that things didn’t really work for us in that period, but we had round pegs in round holes today.”