Premiership side Bolton came to Spotland in Dale's last home pre-season friendly.  The game finished 0-0 but Dale had the better of the game against a near full strength Bolton line up.  A rare Chaff match report is online now.

Dale hosted their last home pre-season friendly on Friday night as Gary Megson's Bolton Wanderers came to town.  Some were worried that it would only be a half strong side that the Premier Leaguers would bring but looking at the squad, it seemed very strong to me so to come away with a goalless draw was a good result on it's own but the performance was especially pleasing too.

The only well known Bolton players not on show were El Hadji Diouf and new signing Jonas Elmander but pretty much everyone else got an outing.  Dale however lined up with Russell, Wiseman, Kennedy, Stanton, McArdle, Buckley, Rundle, Keltie, Jones, Le Fondre and Shaw.

It's fair to say that Rochdale were the better team throughout as well.  We played some cracking football which was very easy on the eye.

Dale were shooting towards the Sandy first half and went close early on when Shaw shot just wide after creating the chance with a fantastic turn.

Bolton nearly opened the scoring when Kevin Nolan lobbed Sam Russell but "The Wall" Rory McArdle was on hand to hook the ball off the line.

Adam Rundle was taking the mick out of Steinsson at right back and got the better of him several times and he managed a cross/shot which Al Habsi struggled with to be fair.

Half time came and Dale had rarely looked troubled and had attacked well without much luck.

Bolton made nine changes to their side but it was still a strong side that lined up for the second half with the likes of Muamba, Gardener, Cohen and Vaz Te coming on.  Fortunately for Dale, Nicky Hunt was also introduced which was like Christmas to Rundle.

Dale made one change, that being Chris Dagnall replacing
Adam Le Fondre.

Daggers nearly got Dale off to the perfect start in the second half when Daggers forced his way through the Wanderers defence and shot but Jaaskelainen got down well to save.

Dale made a few more subs with Toner, Higginbotham, D'Laryea and Ramsden coming on.

Bolton had looked a little better than in the first half but still didn't really look like getting the better of Sam Russell.

The last good chance of the game fell to Shaw who failed to connect with a cracking Kennedy cross and how he didn't connect I don't know but the chance came and went.

The game finished 0-0 as it did on Tuesday, only the match and the performance were a lot more pleasing.  The tempo was as we have come to expect under Hill and we pretty much outplayed Bolton.  That said, it's very clear that Bolton will struggle quite a lot this coming season in the Premiership.

Photo: Action Images

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