I was recently asked, (by someone who doesn't really care), why I don't post more often. It's a valid question, and one I was struggling to answer. At least it was until that Portsmouth result. That was just awful.

The numbers don't lie. Just glance to the right of this at the Archive list. In February there were seven posts, but this will be just my sixth in the last two months. Compare that to Mark Payne (Man Utd) who has five posts in April, or Kevin Brodie (Liverpool) with four in April. Six in two months? Inexcusable.

Of course, my productivity might have been slightly higher if I had Champion's League Quarter-Finals to comment on or the 20th anniversary of Hillsborough, but that's not really fair. Can I really blame my low output on a lack of tragedy or midweek excitement?

Fortunately, next time someone asks why I don't clog up the Webmosphere with pre-match and post-match reports and other assorted idle chatter, I'll be able to point to what has happened over the last two weeks and challenge them to follow Bolton closely. It's not as easy as I make it look.

There was no post before the game at Stamford Bridge because, to be honest, I had absolutely no expectations for that game. Chelsea had just thrashed Liverpool at Anfield in the Champion's League, and Bolton Wanderers are not Liverpool.

That's why you got that babbling, semi-lucid post about Megson's foundations and the next step forward after Bolton came back from 4-0 down to really scare a good team. That unplanned and inadvertent twenty minute performance completely threw me off. I was waiting for the season to quietly wind down, before Gary Megson takes a jackhammer to the squad again. I didn't expect to get excited about a result now the team looked safe.

And it was worth getting excited about. Whatever you think about Chelsea's concentration or Petr Cech's accommodating goalkeeping, it was a big, loud and forceful performance, something that Bolton fans hadn't seen since, err…

Yep, it hasn't been like that since Big Sam left. I'm not just talking about the performance; it was the whole demeanour of the team, the swagger as they took to the pitch. Two years ago, nobody relished playing Bolton and the players knew it. You can still see it in Kevin Davies, how he carries himself on the pitch, but it doesn't run through the team like it did.

Just a week later and it's all gone, replaced by a limp and listless performance at Fratton Park. It was a dismal result, followed by a dismal reaction from Gary Megson:

"Basically we were poor and Pompey were not that much better than us but I can't think of any of our players who did as well as they are capable of doing."

If Megson's aiming to be a regular mid-table team, rather than scrapping until May every year, then his team should be beating a struggling side like Portsmouth. Last week, Bolton were within reach of Spurs, Fulham and West Ham, but now even Man City and Wigan seem a long way off, even though they're only four points away. They're stuck in No Man's Land, free of the relegation tangle but cut adrift from the mid-table scramble for Europa.

What was I supposed to write about after all that? It's taken me a whole week to put those feeling words and sentences, and I still can't escape the feeling that I've been thrown under the bus. They tantalised me at Stamford Bridge, then brought me crashing back to Earth a week later with that stinker against Portsmouth. What have I got to look forward to next season? This week I'm not so optimistic.

Elsewhere, there is a team that is playing forceful, effective football and defends solidly. Stoke have turned The Britannia into a fortress, only losing three times. Only the Big 4 have been better at home this season. They've had great results recently and even managed to stick a finger in Alan Shearer's eye when he needed a result. Meanwhile, only Sunderland, WBA and Hull have lost more games at home than Bolton this season.

In Big Sam's last two seasons at The Reebok, Bolton lost just eight games at home. A loss this weekend against Villa, or against Sunderland or Hull next month, and they'll have equalled that total this season. While Stoke are steadily making their way up the table, Bolton seem to be moving backwards.

Which direction do you want to be going in?