Premier League - City end season with win

Eurosport - Sun, 24 May 20:14:00 2009

Manchester City ended the season on a high note after a 1-0 Premier League victory over Bolton at Eastlands.

FOOTBALL 2008-09 Premier League - Manchester City's Robinho (left) celebrates his goal against Blackburn Rovers with Elano - 0

The only goal of the game came after eight minutes thanks to a moment of brilliance from City.

Robinho took a quick free-kick, rolled it to City's player of the season Stephen Ireland, whose lovely flick was crossed acrobatically by Micah Richards for Felipe Caicedo to finish.

The result ensured City finished in the top half of the table while Bolton ended up in 13th place.

Bolton looked like the better team after going behind with Johan Elmander and Kevin Davies causing the home defence trouble and the excellent Gretnar Steinsson crossing well from the right.

Matthew Taylor's delivery from corners was causing further problems for the hosts and keeper Shay Given was left flapping a number of times.

The rest of City's defence was not faring much better, with Nedum Onuohua atoning for a Richard Dunne error by clearing off the line, and then Dunne repaying the favour after a poor clearance from Onuoha saw Elmander's volley beat Given.

Yet, despite City's problems at the back, they always looked dangerous on the break.

First Robinho hit the post after excellent work from Caicedo, and then Shaun Wright-Phillips forced Jussi Jaaskelainen to tip over after a thundering drive from 25-yards.

In the second half, the Manchester sunshine took the sting out of the game as Bolton appeared to tire, and it was only the excellent Jaaskelainen who kept the score down.

Never afraid to shoot from range, the front three of Wright-Phillips, Caicedo and Robinho all had efforts which Jaaskelainen met with a series of agile saves, the acrobatic leap which kept out Robinho's curling drive being a particular highlight.

With players flagging both managers took the opportunity to make all their substitions, with City giving debuts to Vladimir Weiss and Glauber Berti.

In the dying minutes of the game, Bolton's Mustapha Riga almost pulled off a stunning bicycle kick to grab a share of the points, but it was not to be, and City's win saw the richest club in the world finish their season one place lower than last season under Sven-Goran Erikkson.

Jamie Nazareth / Eurosport

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  1. on the seasons performance it has to be hughes out now ­ john

    From ROGERSON, on Mon 25 May 2:08PM
  2. Comment hidden due to its low rating. Show

    away games show hughes is weak home games may soon show­ that he's weak and has to go john

    From ROGERSON, on Thu 21 May 1:51AM
  3. Well that does it then.... Kevin Davies to score....­ everyone seems to break their duck against Man City....­ come on blues!!!.... lets have a last game­ thrashing!!!... no offence to Bolton but it's there­ for the taking!

    From Chris W, on Wed 20 May 11:48PM
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