Our League Cup campaign starts against Bolton Wanderers and while they may be in League One now, they were regular opponents of ours for a number of years.
The Trotters were Premier League mainstays in the early 2000s and we had some great games against them in that period, as well as creating plenty of club history in the process.
We’ve dug out five of our best results from on our own patch as well as trips up to Greater Manchester to jog your memory ahead of Wednesday’s game:
September 13, 1997
Arsenal 4-1 Bolton
A memorable afternoon for Ian Wright saw him bag a hat-trick to become our all-time record goalscorer, but we had to come from behind after Alan Thompson put Bolton into a 13th-minute lead. But Wrighty equalised seven minutes later to move level with Cliff Bastin, prematurely showing off a t-shirt ready to mark his landmark 178th goal.
But that took just five more minutes to arrive and moved him into outright first place as he tapped home, and Ray Parlour’s deflected effort took us into the break 3-1 ahead. Wrighty then drilled home to complete his treble with nine minutes remaining to cap a special afternoon for a club legend.
September 21, 2002
Arsenal 2-1 Bolton
Another landmark was reached five years later when we equalled Chesterfield's 72-year-old English league record of scoring in 46 consecutive matches, which came when Thierry Henry rounded Jussi Jaaskelainen to finish on 26 minutes, having earlier missed a penalty.
But a minute before half-time, Gareth Farrelly’s mishit cross looped over David Seaman to pull the visitors level. Sam Allardyce’s team saw Ivan Campo dismissed with 10 minutes remaining, and we capitalised in the final seconds when Nwankwo Kanu stuck out one of his long legs to prod the ball into the net to secure an 11th successive home win.
March 29, 2008
Bolton 2-3 Arsenal
In the proverbial game of two halves, we managed to secure a huge win to keep our title challenge alive, which looked to be over at half-time after Matthew Taylor had scored twice, either side of Abou Diaby receiving a 31st-minute red card for a studs-up challenge on Gretar Steinsson.
However William Gallas turned home a Cesc Fabregas corner just after the hour mark and Steinsson brought down Alexander Hleb to allow Robin van Persie to equalise from the spot six minutes later. Then with 15 seconds of the 90 left, a Fabregas shot bobbled its way into the goal off Jlloyd Samuel to complete the comeback.
January 10, 2010
Arsenal 4-2 Bolton
Two years later we again made things hard for ourselves by falling two goals behind, this time at home and after 28 minutes. Gary Cahill opened the scoring and Taylor again netted, this time via a penalty after a Denilson foul, but Tomas Rosicky’s fierce strike just before half-time gave us something to hang onto at the interval.
Fabregas slipped the ball under Jaaskelainen to equalise seven minutes into the second half, and then Thomas Vermaelen blasted us in front for the first time after some penalty area head tennis. Andrey Arshavin wrapped things up five minutes from time to send us top of the table on goals scored.
September 11, 2010
Arsenal 4-1 Bolton
Once again, history was made in a fixture between ourselves at Bolton as the 1,000th goal of Arsene Wenger’s reign arrived in a thumping win. Laurent Koscielny bagged his first goal for the club from close range before Johan Elmander levelled a minute before half-time.
Marouane Chamakh re-established our lead to help Wenger into four figures before the Moroccan striker was the victim of a poor Cahill challenge who was dismissed. We continued to punish the visitors and after some neat feet from Alex Song saw him clip the ball over Adam Bogdan, Carlos Vela completed the rout when he finished off a lengthy passing move.
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.
