Stoke City 2-2 Bolton Wanderers: Relegation for Coyle’s men

Bolton Wanderers have been relegated from the top flight of English football after only managing a draw to Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium.

Bolton’s task was simple: beat Stoke and hope QPR lose to Manchester City. The latter occurred – but the Trotters couldn’t find enough energy to clinch the victory that they were so desperately hoping for.

Irish forward Jonathan Walters netted in the opening 13 minutes, albeit rather controversially, as he appeared to knock the ball out of Adam Bogdan’s hands but Chris Foy, the referee, allowed the goal to stand.

Mark Davies, one of Bolton’s star performers this campaign, produced an effort which took a deflection and found its way into the home side’s net to put the visitors back on level terms.

Kevin Davies then added a second on the stroke of half time to give the travelling Wanderers fans hope, knowing that they were just 45 minutes away from survival.

However, Stoke were awarded a spot kick with 13 minutes left as Peter Crouch was deemed to have been fouled inside the box and Walters completed his brace to condemn Owen Coyle’s men to Championship football next term.