Saturday, 27th March 2010 – KO: 17:30

As I type this, we are sitting at the top of the Premier League but by the time this game kicks off, we could find ourselves in third place. That is how tight the Premier League is at the moment.

We seem to be really coming into good form at the moment and the injury situation seems to be improving game by game.

Bolton have been hovering around the relegation zone for much of the season but just seem to have opened up a bit of a gap between themselves and the bottom three. They’ll still need to pick up a few more from their remaining games though and Manager Owen Coyle who was at Burnley when they beat us at their place at the start of the season will be hoping that he can do something similar again here.

The stats go against them though and Bolton’s record against us is not great although they did beat us 1-0 at their place in 2007.

I think we will have too much for Bolton today but I can’t see a big scoreline. Bolton have been conceding very few goals in recent home games (they do ship a fair few away from home though). The shocker against Everton aside, our own defence has been very mean home and away recently.

I can see a 1-0 or possibly 2-0 win for United here but I would be surprised if there was much more in it than that.

What this means is that picking a decent bet is tricky. The bookies seem to think that this will be a 2-1 win for United but I am not convinced Bolton will score.

I think there’s some value in going for the Under bet here.

The bet is 2 points Under 2.5 goals @ 2.1 with Paddy Power.

I think this game, more than any other, typified Manchester United’s season a whole.

Some quarters have been suggesting that we are a “one man team” with Rooney “carrying” us this season.

Well, there was no Rooney today as Fergie rested him citing a “bruised foot” as the reason. Rio Ferdinand was also rested.

There was nothing particularly spectacular in the game as Bolton made us work extremely hard for everything in a typically fesity encounter. The fact that this game ended with no one booked remains a mystery as there were tackles flying in all over the place and I’m pretty sure half of the players from both sides will have been nursing a few bumps, bruises and sore heads on Sunday morning.

But this is what United have been doing better than anyone else this season. When a fight is called for, we have eleven warriors on the pitch ready to step up to the plate.

And despite nothing spectacular happening we still somehow manage to come away with a 4-0 victory.

The Bolton people will be wondering, “How the hell did that happen?”

Most agreed that the 4-0 scoreline “flattered” United and Bolton didn’t deserve to come away on the end of a drubbing like that.

This is the difference between United and Bolton though. The battle is the means to the end not the end in itself. Bolton seemed to think that working hard and battling hard was all that was needed. United have the focus to compete in the battle and still maintain focus on the ultimate aim which is to win the game.

When that little bit of extra quality was needed in the final third, we were able to produce it.

When Bolton produced that bit of quality in the final third, Van Der Sar was equal to it and pulled off two magnificent saves to deny them.

Having said all this, the Under bet was looking good with the score 0-0 after 37 minutes and just 1-0 after 67 minutes before a three goal blitz within the space of 13 minutes made a mockery of the prediction.

Berbatov was again given the role of lone-striker but he was dropping so deep and going so wide on occasions that the formation looked more like 4-6-0 for much of the game. He still managed to bag a brace and probably should have had a hat-trick but he lost his boot when through on goal and ended up slipping at the crucial stage.

Nani provided two assists, one for Berby and one for Gibson after some great play bamboozled his defender and left him enough time and space to get the ball to his teammates.

Fletcher was again immense in the midfield and Vidic was the unpassable wall in the heart of the defence.

I could go on an mention every single player here because they all did their jobs brilliantly.

A one man team? Don’t make me laugh.