ACCRINGTON STANLEY – 2

BOLTON WANDERERS – 0

ACCRINGTON Stanley progressed to the last 16 of the Leasing.com Trophy with a 2-0 win over Bolton Wanderers.

A first half goal from Offrande Zanzala put the Reds in the lead before substitute Colby Bishop sealed the win towards the end of the game.

John Coleman’s side will go on to face Joey Barton’s Fleetwood Town at Highbury in the next round.

It took just 10 minutes for Stanley to open the scoring after Zanzala scored in a rather fortuitous manner.

The striker was put through on goal and his initial effort was well saved by Remi Matthews, but the ball then rebounded off Zanzala and bounced into the back of the net.

Left back Jerome Opoku almost doubled Stanley’s lead after some fine play from him down the left hand side.

He cut inside, let a shot fly, but Matthews was equal to it.

The rest of the first half was controlled well by Accrington, with Bolton not offering much going forward inside the opening half hour.

It was not the sort of night where top, quality football could be played as the rain came down very heavily at times.

The reintroduction of Sam Finley in the starting XI made Stanley tick along rather nicely in the first half as he was the main source for some nice interplay in the midfield.

Bishop was introduced at half time for the goal scorer Zanzala – who took a number of hard hits in the first period.

Bolton sprung into life in the opening five minutes of the second half as substitute Thibaud Verlinden drove from distance resulting a good, low save before Ronan Darcy’s follow up was also met by the England Under-20 man. Brilliant double save.

Stanley worked it well down the left flank for Joe Pritchard with the former Bolton man shooting wide from a good position.

Keith Hill’s side looked a different team from the one that played in the first period as they pressurised the Stanley goal in what was a much more end-to-end half.

Bolton controlled much of the play late on in the cup tie, with Stanley happy to soak up the pressure and try to catch their opponent’s on the break.

The away side almost found an equaliser through Josh Emmanuel after the right back fired dangerously across the face of goal.

Bishop sealed Stanley’s progression into the next round, but it was Clark who did all the work as he burst from midfield beating three men in process.

Clark’s shot was saved, but Bishop tapped home in the 85th minute.

Stanley XI: Evtimov, Edwards, Sykes, Alese, Opoku, Clark, Finley, Conneely, Pritchard, Zanzala, Charles

Subs: Savin, Johnson, Hughes, Sherif, Bishop, Carvalho, Diallo

Bolton XI: Matthews, Emmanuel, Lowe, O'Grady, Weir, Politic, Darcy, Zouma, Earl, Senior, Graham

Subs: Alexander, Wright, Chicksen, Verlinden, Dodoo, Murphy, Boon