paulhanley

Long post alert but I want to write this to see whether people are in agreement with me about the way football has gone this past 10-15 years. It's not just the way Bolton Wanderers play - but it definitely includes us. Sport is legion with coaches, sports scientists and others who seek to find "extra one per cent" improvements, bits of things that when done consistently well can lead to big progress. British cycling became famed for this. All very laudable Somehow in the search for the new, football seems to have lost its corporate memory and what was good about the old. In effect a series of one per cents have been cast to oblivion. Such is the obsession with playing out from the back and "through the thirds" that certain basics from the past seem to have been deleted from our culture. They are especially but not exclusively focused on defensive play Keepers: The modern day ones seem often to be elevated because of how they are with the ball at their feet rather than their actual keeping skills. Cart before horse. Many have chocolate wrists, have no idea how to command their box and regularly commit the cardinal sin of being beaten at their near post. It's incredible how often the latter happens compared to days of yore. Full backs: Does anybody simplify it down for them and say that whatever attacking play they get involved in the number one job is to block crosses? Centre backs: More cardinal sins of yesteryear committed with regularity, chiefly letting the ball bounce and opening up a pandora's box of danger rather than the tried and trusted method of meeting it with the head or boot and getting the ball to safety. Defenders generally: Great that they are more comfortable on the ball but messing around with it in your own six yard box and having no instinct as to when "the right moment" to play as opposed to get rid of it comes along. I could go on... I am no advocate of the Charles Hughes inspired "play the ball down the channels" dinosaur philosophy that retarded English football for so long. We don't want that back and I hope the era of liberated, free flowing home bred midfielders and strikers, comfortable in possession is here to stay. But surely we have to ally that to a few forgotten old truths about defensive play. Maybe if we get this back in to our culture England won't have to resort to two holding midfielders to protect suspect defenders. In terms of our own backyard I don't think this could ever happen under Evatt who is a high priest of these modern methods - living the 2020s footballing wet dream with no compromise or pragmatism, over-thinking, over-coaching, over-complicating.

Anyone who can be bothered listening to the same old claptrap deserves a gold medal.

Same old faults in evidence. The trouble is Evatt probably thinks a win here erases some of the previous disgraces. We have seen what this team/squad is made of with this manager in charge. He's avoided a further nail in his coffin today. The coffin is still there and its got several immovable nails in it - the ones driven in by Stockport, Wigan and Oxford for instance. No change of view from me. Evatt out. Oh and remind me, which genius loaned Morley out in the first place?

Get rid of Evatt, pay him and his crap backroom staff off with the money we'd have spent on transfers. Go with the same squad to the end of season. Inevitably a new manager will get more out of them because let's face it how could he get less. Then back the new manager in the summer window. Everything would be freshened up, we'd feel like we have something to look forward to again and maybe, just maybe, we'd have someone who is more concerned with results than aesthetics and who isn't dogmatic and hidebound with his "philosophy". The bloke has to go. In retrospect he should have gone after Oxford but he certainly should after Exeter and Huddersfield at home (which is when I turned against him for keeps). He is a complete liability and if you want the proof, the abject defeats to Stockport and Wigan are blots on our history forever. We do not want any more such occasions and we want hard-headed management to get us back the Championship.

AKA doing the basics. Because such matters are beneath Evatt while he pretends he's Jurgen Klopp.

Same old shit. Same old faults. No doubt we will soon have the same excuses. EVATT OUT.

In the context of what went before Southgate did an unbelievable job. The tournaments have been great even if at times we've been deadly to watch. The first game of his I really enjoyed was the 2-0 World Cup Quarter Final v Sweden in 2018. That was a real breakthrough moment. Obviously the two Euro finals we reached are to his credit although he can be criticised for the way he managed the Italy final. We sat back at 1-0. Overall though, a tournament win over Germany, a semi-final win over the Dutch, the double over Italy in qualifiers. None of that is stuff we'd have achieved before. People can say he's had a great generation of footballers but he made enough of it to be the most successful England manager since Alf Ramsey.

Easy. Flat track bullies. Don't forget the surrenders v Wigan and Stockport. And the previous surrenders v Wigan and others.

I don't remember his time in goal but very well remember his time as boss. He was appointed after a golden spell as caretaker (New Year 1985) in the wake of John McGovern's departure. As seems to be the way in football a barren run then followed. In the summer of 85 he tried to re-cast the McGovern template of young footballing sides based on home grown talent. It was an exciting few months as he brought in household names who were beyond their top flight best - David Cross and Asa Hartford. Big Sam also returned aged 30. My young and callow mind thought we were all set to walk Div 3. Third game of that season we lost 1-4 at home to Bury. It all didn't work out in the end. We remained where Mr McGovern had left us, lower mid-table in Division 3. He'd not even been in the job 12 months when he was sacked and replaced by Phil Neal. Highlights of his reign were probably two wins as caretaker boss: A 3-0 home win over Derby and a 1-2 win at Bristol Rovers on a Tuesday night. That one brought to an end an astonishing run of poor form away from home in 84/5 - we had failed to win or draw any of our first 10 or 11 league away games that season. Also worth mentioning a 4-1 home trouncing of Wolves in 85/6. RIP Charlie and condolences to the family.

What moves the needle is Evatt being sacked. I've now reached the stage of wanting us to lose to ram the point home to the board. No football fan should be put in such a position. Our cohort of directors need massively jolting out of this debilitating head in the sand/groupthink/not reading the room mode they are in. What worries me most is our board seem willing to accept beyond the pale results like Stockport 5 Bolton 0, Bolton 0 Wigan 2 and Wembley. What else are we supposed to infer from Evatt's continued presence? On the part of the board this shows a catastrophic misreading of the Bolton Wanderers DNA. We are not about meek surrender and being everybody's fucking patsy. Evatt out. Now.

There are only two words I am interested in reading about Bolton Wanderers. Evatt out.

I'm fed up of the outright nonsense he comes out with. He can prattle on all he wants, he can rely on his flat track bully stats all he wants. He got outwitted by Maloney on Saturday yet again and he's a fucking liability to the football club. There is no longer an argument to the contrary. While we all feel sore about bleak derby defeats and our continued presence in the third tier of English football, he think he's the next Jurgen Klopp. And Sharon buys it. When he's long gone we're all still around and those defeats to Wigan (multiple) and Stockport sully our history forever. Get out now before more corrosive damage is done.

Felt really bleak to read about "the vote of confidence". How much more evidence does Sharon need that this will not work? Clearly she's the only person in the town who doesn't see how lame and pathetic it is when Evatt utters that "we seem to freeze" against Wigan. Heads in the sand, fail to read the room, fritter away the most incredible surge in support we've had for a lifetime.

David Cheater

Absolutely rammed with asylum seekers most of the time these days (I live about 20 miles from Oxford an often work there, imagine how much fun that was in May).

Re this We could win three games on the spin against Wigan from here (of which there is no hope with Evatt in charge) and it wouldn't put our record straight

Silly cunt. He has had a lot of money to spend on players at third tier level and we've made plenty of significant six figure signings. Most weeks he is up against pretty small clubs who haven't got a pot to piss in. In those circumstances quite a few would stand a chance of a 50 per cent win rate. Point is the white flag goes up when it counts, time and time again. Flat track bullies. You are utterly delusional Mr Evatt. Resign.

If Sharon hasn't got the message now then things are going to have to go very, very toxic. Not just on here, but properly toxic - like it did for Megson, Freedman, Neal etc. Crowds will have to diminish. It pains me to have to write all this. Our gates have been fabulous, just unbelievable in the context of the club's history post the 1950s. Maybe that's partially why we are seeing this paralysis from the boardroom. They can say what they want but we're being taken for granted. To be so gratuitously stubborn in the face of all reason only happens when groupthink is occurring and when there's a disconnect with reality. That reality needs hammering home and the boardroom needs a cold, hard dose of reality. .... and yes I know they saved us from oblivion.

At this rate I would take fucking Phil Neal. At the very least he had a better record against Wigan than Evatt and we beat them occasionally. Unlike this gutless, spineless bunch of petals.

"We're looking forward to it and we know what it means to the fans, to the town, the bragging rights etc. We haven't got the right results against them in my tenure here, but I think it goes further back than that. We have to make sure we start to put that right." Blah, blah, blah. Another stain on our history to add to the ever growing collection. Another failure to turn up in a game that matters. Another surrender to these toe-rags. How much more evidence does this board of directors need? He has got to go and he has got to go now. The debate is over.

A lot of words from Evatt today. Heard it all before and it means fuck all until they beat these turds He did say one thing that's spot on. Regardless of how the game is going/if we go a goal down/if its goalless and Wigan are frustrating us - the fans have to stick with it in this game and keep up a strong atmosphere. Hard thing to do given the collective frustrations with the way things go sometimes but on Saturday it has got to be done. The pie men thrive on doubt and discord.

Ah, the traditional pre Wigan injury has occurred. Things as per script Hard not to be fatalistic. Seen it all before. Anybody know if they've got any injuries? I don't want to sully myself with looking first hand.

They always are. I wish someone would show Evatt your post. Although surely to god the penny is dropping with him now.

Suspect you're right if there's a winner. But the scoreline I predict likeliest are 0-0 or 1-1.

I see they are performing their party piece. Shit performance before they play us, no doubt an even worse one on the game after. In between they'll come and play like Real Madrid on steroids against us. Maybe for once we'll be ready for it. Maybe.