Coyle praises ex-Swansea midfielder

Bolton manager Owen Coyle praised midfielder Darren Pratley after the 2-1 FA Cup victory over Swansea City.

The hosts fell behind to a Luke Moore goal, before Pratley scored an equaliser against his former club, and Chris Eagles netted a second-half winner to book a fifth-round place.

Pratley has struggled to hold down a regular first-team place since his summer move to the Reebok Stadium, but Coyle hailed the attitude of the midfielder.

“I think he’s been frustrated this season,” Coyle said.

“It’s great to see him hit the back of the net, but he could’ve had a hat-trick!”

“It was great to see the energy he brought to the team and in scoring his goal I think he was very respectful of his former club with his reaction.”

Coyle praised the effort shown by his side as they came back from behind to beat Swansea and progress to the last 16.

“It was more than a win,” he said.

“I thought we were excellent today, we started really well and felt hard done by to lose the opening goal because we’d had various chances to be in front.”

“But the reaction was great, in the second half we scored a great goal but should’ve added to it.”

“There’s no doubt we were very deserving winners today.”

Meanwhile, Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers felt his side were unlucky not to be in the hat for the next round.

“I felt that we deserved something from the game,” Rodgers said.

“We weren’t at our best or nowhere near our best but I still felt we’d done enough to earn something out of the game at the very least.”

“I made changes to ensure the team was fresh and put a lot of trust in the players but there were too many mistakes today, that was the problem for us.”

“I have a big respect (for the FA Cup), I really wanted us to go through today and I picked a team to do that.”