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Granted, it’s a strange “first game of the season” And I get it’s not as important as next Saturday. But surely we are not at the stage of dismissing the league cup as a glorified friendly? It would be great to have some sort of cup run alongside the main show of the Championship. I’m looking forward to it. Beers in Sheffield, a chance to see us play some proper competitive football since our famous Wembley win, an opportunity for our squad to step up and hopefully seeing us progress into the next round. Bring on the Sheffield sun! This is what Saturday afternoons are all about. 👏

Genuinely gents, this forum has become a really really rubbish place to visit this summer.

I never thought i'd see the day when a Bolton fan stands up for Ken Anderson. The guys morally bankrupt Must be a secret wigan fan?

he was in it for himself from the off paying himself 600k plus from a club losing millions for example he took the club to the brink of extinction all whilst trying get as much as he could out of it for himself he knew exactly what he was doing when he got involved he'd been there and done it before and had an eight year ban as a company director to show for it he was bent as fuck and gave the club and fans it's darkest days he got all the shit he deserved yet you go on like he did a solid job keeping us a float and finding us new owners and suggesting he had no other choice and anyone savvy in business would have done the same

Its just... a really, really good piss up, Sheffield. Genuinely top class.

Should have had the game sewn up by HT. Played pretty well to that point. Thoughts Weds were pretty poor and one dimensional. But our lack of finishing cost us. Slower start to 2nd half but still in control until Simons stupidity - he'd played well to that point. Lost our way for the next 15 mins with 10 men and 27c heat, but could have still equalised at the death. One of Bannan''s many chips over the top was eventually going to create a chance. That's the 4th game I've seen this season. Dalby's best by a margin. Stephenson is a great buy and Larra will be fine when fit (he should have scored). Defensively Davies is good but Famewo offers little going forward. Watson has been the most disappointing so far, not yet worked out what sort of player he is. Think Dong will come good.

Sorry, ive made a deal with myself to not read match threads So Worried Forino did his hamstring Ref was utter shite Simons was stupid but see above We were fine for the majority, but 10 men and no bom squad killed us

I find a lot of Parky's detractors often know the least about him He wasn't at the start of his managerial career when he joined us as he'd already guided Colchester United from League One relegation candidates to promotion to the Championship, got Bradford City promoted to League One, a League Cup final whil in League Two, and an FA Cup quarter-final He got us promoted at the first attempt while under a transfer embargo and then kept us up the following season as the club began to crumble Wrexham might've had a cash injections but people go on as if three consecutive promotions and a seventh placed finish in the Championship in four years is a piece of piss He's just a very, very good football manager with a track record of success at most of the clubs he's worked for

Surely we can't be arsed, looked the better side with 11 men, and this season the less games the better.

Totally stupid rush of blood, mad thing is though didn’t see their lad pickup a yellow for the blatant pull back

Not heard or seen him say that once. Where and which interviews has he said we are poor ? He said the players ain't daft , they can see what positions are short and know what we need to bring in.

I liked him before, thought he did a really good job at Rochdale, was happy with his appointment. And I’ve since liked him afterwards, his podcasts and work on GMR, does indicate both a respect and good knowledge base on us. So I’m ok with him. But I think you have it right, we were too big for him. I also think he was massively done over with the Tobias Phoenix debacle. I think his crazy interviews became misconstrued as being against the fans when actually he was massively at odds with TP. Either way, and correctly IMO, he will be looked upon as a poor appointment.

Or another way to look at it. Today’s game has no relevance on what we want this season. I’ll say it. Glad we are out. Shit tourno

Fuck that leave RR at 10. We’ve tried everyone else at 10 and none good enough.

At the minute RR is by far and away our best number 10 but also one of our two best centre mids. It's going to take a lot of good performances from others (and new signings) to see him out of the team. Equally I wouldn't assume Dalby ends up starting every game and I'd say he's an outside bet to hit double figures whatever role he's playing.

Played well enough by all accounts, bar the finishing. RR done really well preseason, but he didn't have his shooting boots/head on today. Had he done we would have been a couple ahead, and would probably have won. Red card obviously changed things, but overall I'm not discouraged.

Its not impossible to go through with 10 men. PNE had 10 for over an hour and won on pens, we won at Plymouth with 10. We lost because we couldn't score, 0-0 after an hour, 11 v 11. It just looked like we weren't very good, either at the back, in midfield or up front. Not sure where to start really, impossible to just say we need this or that. Dempsey would improve us straight away even if just from the bench, but with the current availability he'd be starting next week.

You’ve all fallen into the trap. Current finance done and out of the way, just another way to turn it into the Sluffy show again. It’s done, it was what it was and we are where we are. Digging it all up again only benefits one person - the one with the insatiable desire for attention.

Roll on 3pm

I'm a pessimist by nature but you've got me beat, now you're inventing stuff to be upset about.

You're framing it like Ken was a martyr with no choices. He had choices. He chose to extract personal fees, secure debt in his own name, fail to pay players/staff, fail to pay agreed transfer fees, and take the club into administration anyway leaving us with no players, relegation, minus 12 points and dragged it out longer than it needed to agreeing a deal with FV because he wanted the best deal for himself. he certainly didn't take a club in crisis and restructure us in to a viable business model to attract new buyers he didn't save us, FV the Eddie Davies Trust did it was probably KAs plan all along it wouldn't have been mine "I would like to pay particular tribute to the Eddie Davies Trust and their legal team who, throughout this whole process, have been willing to do everything in their power to ensure Eddie's incredible legacy was maintained and not sullied... Even at the 11th hour when other parties were content to renege on their agreements, the Trust realised the very existence of Bolton Wanderers was at stake and were willing to find a compromise to save the club." "The Trust were forced to constantly compromise their position in the face of circumstances and demands which were wholly unreasonable. This says much about their determination not to allow Eddie's beloved Bolton Wanderers to suffer any longer at the hands of Ken Anderson." "Sadly, Mr Anderson has used his position as a secured creditor to hamper and frustrate any deal that did not benefit him or suit his purposes. Thankfully, with the assistance of the Trust and others, we were able to overcome this obstacle."

Just back, we were the better team & I was confident up to the sending off but after that, Sheffield looked the likely winners. We played some nice football but we were toothless.....I felt sorry for Dalby who did well but was completely isolated.......so nothing we didn,t know beforehand. Stephenson, Forino & Davies were very solid defensively, but not sure about Farnewo yet !!, midfield was good & we'll miss Simons who played well & the wingers were hit & miss.........my first sight of Dong is that he's not as bad as those who seem to have written him off say, not a starter yet but he's got potential. The trains were ridiculously overcrowded both ways but on the plus side, there was a good Madness/Ska band on in the Balmoral !!

Randall 😳 Writing Watson off after a couple of games. Sorry this is crank.

Don't disagree re RR, he'd have to play himself out of the team really, the most creative body we have at the minute

It really felt like a friendly, albeit one where they deployed the dark arts masterfully. Free kick for having your nose bust open.. Pulled back on goal, free kick but no yellow.. every tackle was agressive The sticking the foot in on gale being just one example. We had it all last season though and they need to toughen up against teams like that. Positives Gale was a clear threat, Lazza was to some extent and his game will improve The midfield of Simons and Sheehan worked well to that point We won't manage what we want with a lone man. RR is class though so who do you drop? Who do you play? It's a distraction we won't need this season..

1-0 them. Burstow’s sub had scored.

The sending off gives them a excuse but Wednesday were getting on top anyway we looked good for 25 minutes first half should of been in front after that we were poor against a really poor side

I'd argue we looked like a scoring on several occasions, most notably Rodrigues and Stephenson both had great opportunities created by Gale that on another day either could bury.

They need to fuck it off sharpish. Load of nonsense.

Good half that. Comfortably the better side but do look guilty, as we did last year, of trying to walk it in a bit. I'd like us to just have a dig more, turn the possession in to genuine chances and shots on goal.

The day will come when Conway plays on midfield. When it does I'm coming asking for the apologies. It takes a big man not to say "I told you so" and I'm not that fckg big.

I and I'm sure many others on here have a brick with our name on it at the ground to thank us for not asking for our ST money back when we weren't allowed in the ground ive sponsored players too, not that I expect anyone else too or think I've done more, I don't think there's much value in it, just pissing money away because you want to help the club I've done my bit and so have many others that goes beyond just buying a ticket

We are supporters. We support the club by turning up, paying our well earned to support them through thick and thin, no more. I’m mean each to their own and all that, and the irony isn’t lost that when it comes to a topic I’m passionate/mildly knowledgeable about I’ll pontificate as good as anybody, but this thread is one of the worst in the history of WWs, its almost as bad as some of those on behind the stands 🤣

Jesus Christ Sluffy, I genuinely wish you would just FO. I can't take much more of your ffn shite, technically legal or not

Well here’s the strange bit. All those who hate migrants, also hate Burnham. Because he’s labour. They don’t want the country to be a better place. They just want to be proven right. Their political leaning is more important to them than a better Britain So they actually now yearn for more small boat crossings, in order to throw shade at him. They’ll never admit that. But it’s true. they want him to fail and one of his main judgements will be on migration/immigration

Although I enjoyed watching Lennon and Hill teams, generally. It was purgatory watching Parky's team much of the time. ALF on the bench or the left wing, Armstrong on the right wing, neither entertaining or productive.

A gang of slags on the piss

See also:

I bet his degree in Sports Broadcasting has come in useful these last few weeks

I think it's comments like this that make it difficult for you to convince people you aren't an Anderson apologist He might've been a part of the deal that brought us out of administration but his ownership of the club ultimately ended with us finding ourselves back in administration and him appointing his own administrators to protect his own financial interest In no sense did he find Sharon or the FV group of investors - if any credit is due for that it goes to Michael James - and the section of your post above is an extraordinarily generous interpretation of his time here

Hill's issue was, when things started going pear shaped he hadnt reckoned with the size of the fanbase and the antagonistic edge he got away with at Rochdale wouldn't wash here. He was combustible at Dale but was able to swat off fans who didn't like him because, until the last couple of months of his second spell, he'd been successful and could point to it With water under the bridge and viewing us from a different angle he shows he's still got decent knowledge of the game and doesn't seem to bear us any ill will.

What would you have done then? A club in debt, the last assets used as a loan (which obviously had to be paid back (we defaulted in the very first payment iirc) Deano pocketing £1m from it for himself, the club losing £1m a month, they only hope is to hang on long enough for a sale, creditors knocking on the door. What exactly would you do so differently? Go on then, how else would you survive because I can't think of any other way to do it.

Thing with Sammy Lee was he tried to change the style of play too much too soon , and left Campo out of the Euro squad .

Big Sam - Good, actual legendary Sammy Lee -not enough time to decide Megson - cunt Coyle - A very naughty boy - and found out Freedman - another cunt Lennon - OK Paeky - Good manager, dinosaur Keith Hill - Pink onions - bit of a twat but good on gmr Evatt - Good, helped bring good times back Schu - Good, has the chance to be great saw Smalling in burger king

Lennon & Hill were both terrible managers that get a fairly easy ride because of the difficult circumstances that they were working under, but Parky showed what a very good manager could achieve even at a club that was falling to bits.

Nobody wants to admit illegal immigrants shouldn’t be here ? Really ? You see folk from all sides of politics saying they shouldn’t 😂 And which legal immigrants do you think shouldn’t be here out of interest? Desperate is an odd analogy. I think it’s interesting that a growing movement continues to argue that we need to protect women & girls. Then they completely ignore it when it happens in their own community. And let’s be honest - many of these anti immigration activists have their own convictions for domestic abuse. I think what it shows is they are more preoccupied with hating anyone foreign than actually making our streets safer. Every week now you see them targeting innocent people & beating coppers. Families torched from their homes. New headlines from another area again today. And if a Muslim is convicted of a sex offence then out come the deluded rants about how Islam cannot exist alongside Western values. Yet nobody is suggesting the British military isn’t compatible with Western values after scandal after scandal makes the news. Both are of course compatible. It’s always an entire group of people get tarnished with the same brush if a foreigner commits the crime.

And, for that decision, he deserved all the anger he got from supporters

My memory of that time was a load of people shouting at the Andersons to fuck off and walk away. Then another group saying if they do that what happens next as they were the only show in town. I was very much in the latter group but can see now that they were a real cancer in the club milking us for as much as they could. The comparison with FV really is night and day. This is how Sharon Brittan described the situation. Anderson and his son were taking money out of the club all the way through.….. ‘When I walked into Bolton Wanderers in 2019, I cannot explain the pitiful situation that I walked into having had a previous owner – I can't even say the club was on its knees, because it was beyond that.14 May 2024’ Let’s not forget in the days leading up to the takeover we were a ticking bomb. Below is the quote from the Administrators. As we were on the edge of disappearing Anderson was doing his best to screw even more money out of the gig. It is due to the Eddie Davies Trust and FV that we even have a club to talk about; ‘Even at the 11th hour when other parties were content to renege on their agreements, the Trust realised the very existence of Bolton Wanderers was at stake and were willing to find a compromise to save the club "It is a testament to their unflinching determination to do what was best for Bolton that we are able to complete the deal today. "The Trust were forced to constantly compromise their position in the face of circumstances and demands which were wholly unreasonable. This says much about their determination not to allow Eddie's beloved Bolton Wanderers to suffer any longer at the hands of Ken Anderson.’ To see a supposed Bolton fan defend Anderson in what can only be a desperate attempt to get attention is really pathetic.

Hardly the point neither- Sluufy just being Sluffy. As the top man at the club, it was his responsibility to look after staff and ensure they got paid. To suggest he was under no obligation is frankly ridiculous and mind blowing. Particularly when his son is swanning around the club shop, treating the place like his own wardrobe and effectively abusing staff. The bloke had form, and continued it here. Contrast that with Sharon who turned up, bought staff cakes, and spoke to them, made them feel special and looked after them. The club is nothing without good people throughout. Later on, thousands of us gave up the money for our season tickets, and none of us needed to do that neither. We did, because we had trust in FV.