Bolton Wanderers vs Ipswich Town. Sky Bet Championship.
University of Bolton StadiumAttendance17,811.
Paul Lambert's men are 13 points from safety with six games left to play
Saturday 6 April 2019 20:36, UK
Collin Quaner scored twice in 11 first-half minutes as bottom side Ipswich won 2-1 to cap a miserable week for fellow Sky Bet Championship strugglers Bolton.
The German forward, previously with only one goal since arriving on loan at Portman Road from Huddersfield in January, struck in the 33rd and 44th minutes of a match that had been placed in doubt in recent days.
Bolton's players went on strike over the unpaid wages of non-playing staff, while the club survived another High Court winding-up order before a prohibition notice and an IT failure threatened the postponement of the match.
Josh Emmanuel netted a stoppage-time own goal for the home side but it came too late to save Phil Parkinson's men from defeat.
Despite their fourth win of the campaign, Ipswich are 13 points from safety with six matches to play, although they have now lost just twice in nine games.
The standard of football reflected the lowly position of both clubs until Town struck 12 minutes from the break.
Skipper Luke Chambers crossed superbly from the right and Quaner rose highest to head home from eight yards.
Alan Judge forced a save from Remi Matthews with a low right-footed shot as Ipswich sensed a second goal. And there were joyous scenes among the travelling fans when Quaner was allowed the time and space to fire in a right-footed effort from 20 yards that went in off an upright.
That goal saw Ipswich register two in a game for only the second time in 2019.
Wanderers - booed off at half-time - were marginally brighter in the second half. Will Buckley - scorer of one of their goals in last weekend's win at QPR - scuffed a chance to pull one back after 50 minutes and substitute Erhun Oztumer finally tested keeper Bartosz Bialkowski after 72 minutes.
Emmanuel's 94th-minute intervention could not prevent the visitors from picking up a first away win since they beat Swansea 3-2 on October 6.
Phil Parkinson: "You can only take so many knocks as a team and that's what it looked like in the first half. We looked like a team who had had the stuffing knocked out of them and also hadn't trained properly.
"The preparation this week hasn't been good enough for a Championship-level performance in a game of this magnitude. You look at the first 45 minutes and we were so far off the pace, with the ball and without the ball.
"As a staff, if you have two or three players who haven't trained, we always think 'do we play them or not?' But when you have a whole squad who haven't been able to prepare properly it shows. Everyone watching the game would have seen that.
Paul Lambert: "It was a disgrace. At this level, there's something not quite right. The Bolton fans must be going mad with it. Even for ourselves to come up six hours on Friday and our supporters as well.
"The football was great, we controlled the game and the two goals were fitting for the first half. I am disappointed with the goal in the last minute but performance-wise it was very good. The performance doesn't surprise me because we have been playing well for weeks and months. We just haven't had the reward until now."
