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City went into this,the, fourth of a five round robin Manchester Senior Cup matches knowing that a victory would secure a place in the final. That script was not read as City and their defence captained by Nedum Onuoha were a bit all over the place in the first half at times and allowed Bolton to take a first half lead from local lad Sam Sheridan. City gained their equalizer through an Andrew Tutte penalty when Robbie Mak was brought down in the area.

Bolton took the lead when Ben Mee; who's form has been hit and miss recently decided to venture forward with the ball before firing it up field but only hit the ball straight at Sam Sheridan and it cannoned back into the path of Ricardo Vaz Te who held off Nedum Onuoha  and then back heeled it for Sheridan to fire fire past Tobias Johansen.

Three minutes later and City came close to levelling proceedings when a corner was only half cleared and James Poole fired his shot back goal-wards, but was deflected to Alex Nimely Tchuimeni but his shot was blocked on the line and put behind for another corner. Kieran Trippier whipped in the resulting corner and Mee saw his header drift just wide of the outside post.

Just over the half hour point and again Nimely had a chance to level the game as Greg Cunningham played the ball into Trippier who sent a ball over the top for Nimely to run onto but he could only shoot straight at Rob Lainton in the Bolton goal.

The second half started well for City as Robbie Mak in the fifty first minute cut inside on the left hand side but his quick feet were too fast for Aaron Mooy who's tackle was miss-timed and down went Mak. City nominated penalty taker is the calm likeable scouser, Tutte who fire his shot with venom off the inside of the post giving Lainton no chance.

Bolton had a glorious chance in the seventy first minute to re-gain the lead when they broke from a City attack and had three players on two and the ball came over from the right to Zoltan Harsanyi and he set himself but Johansen saved well from his shot.

Lainton then made a very good double save when Mak used his fine skill on the left and beat the defender on the by-line before firing the cross in that Dedryck Boyata hit first time that Lainton's instinctive reactions blocked but the ball came back to Boyata and Lainton again was there as he tipped his header behind for the corner.

A minute later and again Mak was involved as he burst forward and had another fine shot that again Lainton saved well from. City continued to press for an outright winner but could not find that elusive breakthrough as penalties ensued.

Both teams' players confidently struck their first four penalties as Bolton took their rotation first and as such the fifth penalty became sudden death and where as Rhys Bennett scored his penalty Kieran Trippier did not look as confident as his shot to the left was at the right height for Lainton who was probably man of the match for his performance saved the day for Bolton.

City will be playing Bolton in the league within the week at the re-arranged venue of the Reebok stadium on Monday evening hoping to gain revenge and maybe we can see the skills of John Guidetti who surprisingly left on the bench all game and that we can have officials who referee the game to a better standard as their incompetence was quite glaring at times.

Teams:

Manchester City:

T Johansen(GK), Boyata, Cunningham, Tutte, Onuoha, Mee, Vidal(Kay 72 mins), Trippier, Nimely, Poole, Mak

Subs: Gonzales(GK), Chantler, Guidetti, Redshaw

Bolton Wanderers:

Lainton(GK), Riley, Blakeman, Burns, Bennett, McDonald, Campbell(Sampson  78 mins), Sheridan, Vaz Te, Mooy, Harsanyi

Subs: Lynch(GK), Stayte, McGregor, Irwin

Attendance: 156

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