paulhanley
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Posts posted by paulhanley
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I can understand why the Irish might be a little bit annoyed at Declan Rice given he played for them three times. But he was born in Kingston-upon-Thames. Grealish was born in the midlands and has a brummie accent. It's not like we've got lads from County Meath or Donegal turning out for us. Our lot didn't turn up with flags saying "The snake returns" when Jackie Charlton managed them against us either. Not to mention the countless others with dubious qualifications to play for Ireland.
I love the Irish, they're brilliant people. But come on....
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19 minutes ago, TrickyTrotter said:
Iles said post Barrow that some problems had emerged - without elaborating.
Ah so we're going in to the rest of the first half of the season one light of the squad size we're allowed.
Clever.
Tricking League 1 in to a fall sense of security.
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Where's this bloody free agent signing then?
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13 minutes ago, Lt. Aldo Raine said:
Heard it all before now haven't we.
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Just now, W.cramp said:
Who ? Just who would we look towards here ? I just don't see many names coming forward.
No use trotting that line out. Football clubs change managers. There'll be all kinds of names linked. Big Sam will be one of them, whether that's realistic or not who knows. Alex Neill mentioned above. Ryan Lowe will get linked, so will Leam Richardson. That's just off the top of my head and no research.
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18 minutes ago, Farnywhite said:
Question Is this our longest period of our history of being out of the championship if we don’t go up this season ?
We had 10 years from 1983 to 1993. I've lost count of how many this is. Not 10 yet. .
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19 minutes ago, dusan nikolic said:
I still think there is an apathy all around the club since Wembley and other than some excitement regarding various transfers i don't think it has or will shift. And certainly won't be helped with spineless displays like those.
I've seen this before at Bolton and other football clubs. Indeed you can see it generally in places of employment where the workforce loses faith in the management and "the project". We're outsiders looking in and its guesswork but that's how it appears to me.
There's only one solution if we have indeed reached this state of affairs. Ian Greaves once used a phrase "its sacking time", he was gone weeks later. Some boards would have done the deed already or would do so after that pitiful showing today.
This is the first time I've spoken like this about Evatt, but I'm not sure what other conclusion to draw now. All the tell-tale hallmarks are there.
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That's appalling.
It's a result and performance that changes people's minds.
I'm starting to have a 1991/2/Phil Neal feeling.
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2 hours ago, tomski said:
Few rumours it’s Brandon Williams
I think he's in some legal trouble, so that'd be a risky do.
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The fact that we are moving on from Iredale says a lot. We signed him one year after promotion from League 2. He's been a reasonable signing, done OK for us, far from a washout. But he wasn't quite the type of signing that was going to get us to the Championship. I actually think the same about Sheehan. Dare I say it, Santos and Gethin may be in this category too. It makes me think of the early to mid-1990s when we started moving on from players we'd valued - Reeves, Philliskirk, Cowdrill, Felgate, Storer. None of those players were in the side that Bruce got us promoted with. Darby had fallen to the fringes a bit.
On the downside I think we look a bit thin again. It's probably only because Forrester, Lolos and CMG are all injured but I'm definitely a fan of us getting a free agent in to bolster things up a bit.
One or two real prospects coming through the B team would be really handy at this point, especially with Freight Rover games on the horizon. Not sure we've got that up our sleeve though.
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I hope he goes there, stays injury free and establishes himself as a League 1 striker. The business of updgrading a squad involves successfully offloading those surplus to requirements as well as buying in better players. That's what we're seeing here.
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16 minutes ago, Rival Son said:
Your post is far more balanced than others of late, but there’s a lot of “experts know what they’re doing and fans don’t” at the moment.
There’s plenty of evidence (inside and out of football) to suggests that experts don’t always know best.
Ar least until midnight, Sunderland still hold the record third tier transfer fee paid. Over £3 million for Will Grigg, who delivered 5 goals in 47 appearances over three seasons in the third tier.
Closer to home, just look at the overwhelming reaction of Bolton fans, to the news that we’d paid good money - £300k - to sign Dan Nlundulu, who’d done nothing in half a season on loan.
15 months later, and it’s definitely average fan 1 expert Evatt 0.
Let’s not dismiss the opinions of fans who’ve watched and studied the game closely, for many years or even decades, but have never worked professionally in football.
Fans who've been watching for years certainly should never be dismissed and are often very knowledgeable.
It was interesting to hear Evatt talk about a 50% success rate with signings being the average across football. If ever you've been involved in recruitment in any profession, it's a hazardous business and you're never going to get perfection.
We could go on with this debate forever. My own view is that they've done decently with recruitment since Evatt joined within the resources available. I'd have other things higher up my list of stuff to criticise re IE and the management ...hopefully without going too OTT and keeping things in context.
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2 minutes ago, gonzo said:
Is that Mads Anderson the chap who was fookin imperious against us in that 2nd play off at Oakwell?
Aye. It'd be a cracking signing. The fact its Luton again (Evatt's mate is their manager) lends some credence. But there'd have to be someone on the way out for that to happen.
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39 minutes ago, VividDreamer said:
Showing an interest in Mads Andersen at Luton
Well if that's true then we've a CB leaving. Iredale? Toal wasn't in the side the other night!
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Reading between the lines of who has been absent with explanation in recent games it looks like Nlundulu and Iredale would be the favourites to leave. I'd be surprised if Williams went. Victor leaving has to be watched given the amount of links in recent times.
Our squad size is such that we'd need new players in if a clutch leave. Then we're in the business of assessing whether the incomings are better quality than the outgoings.
None of this is ideal before Exeter given there are supposedly injuries in the mix too.
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A lot of teams will lose at Charlton but the whole point is that we never win games against teams at the top (which it looks like Charlton will be ) There's a groundhog day feel about it all.
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Anybody else sick and tired of hearing about Stockport County yet? Glad they won at Blackpool last week but they're going to be turning in to a pain in the neck and (yet another) petty BWFC detractor. Come on The Gas in this game on now.
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Newcastle?
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Someone at work today was earnestly speculating that this is a mafia do. The main piece of insight being "it happened off the coast of Sicily".
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Lots of comparatively recent ones so I shall delve back to my earlier BWFC watching days for these:
* Getting relegated from Div 2 in May 1983 with a grim 4-1 defeat at Charlton. As a kid I thought it was the end of the world. We'd been shedding decent players all season to balance the books (Peter Reid to Everton for a measly £60K) and the writing was on the wall. But we'd scraped clear in the previous two years and we harboured hopes we'd do it again. Even more so when we went 0-1 up when Ian Moores bundled the ball in half way through the second half. Horrible.
* I remember being gutted about an abysmal 1-2 Freight Rover Semi final home defeat to Mansfield in 1985. Me and my mates at school had convinced ourselves we were Wembley bound. Bitter pill to swallow.
* Tranmere in that play off final. The scabby bin-dipping bastards. An appalling day when we missed our chance to re-assume our position in the upper echelons of English football after the misery of point 1 (above). Elton Welsby, Chris Malkin, Eric Nixon and all other turds had their day. But the boot was on the other foot two years on.
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12 hours ago, Duck Egg said:
It's not often I'll take the plunge in to reading the BN comments sections but I'm really glad I did this time. There's some proper memories there. Not often you'll get such consensus these days. Speaks volumes.
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4 minutes ago, desperado said:
Are we saying the capacity is now 27,500?
If so I’m not sure where the 1500 spares were yesterday.
And were all the extras in the Leicester record crowd using all the segregation netting?
For that game and one v Arsenal in the same season they had away fans in the SSU and Bolton fans in the SSL. That meant no segregation netting was needed and all of the 28,000 seats could be sold.
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5 minutes ago, Lostock Whites said:
Not looking to be an #attendnonce. But yesterday signified our biggest post Premier League attendance and it's not in isolation. We hit multiple 24/25k+ crowds last season and it appears to only be going up.
There's obviously a lot of factors at play and if the club starts to rot in League 1 then the trend might change. However, it's pretty certain that clubs fanbase has grown much bigger recently, to a level rivalling our Premier League days, whilst in the 3rd tier, massively impressive.
Obviously there were still some empty seats yesterday and a couple thousand of maximum capacity, but I really do wonder if there is any long term plans to increase the capacity by a tad amount, maybe add a few more rows here and there?
It might seem excessive, but right now the only way to get multiple tickets is right in the upper tiers and corners. I guess we might also know more if we are a Championship club next year and the news on safe standing.
If all goes to plan, we will probably be looking at 18/19,000 season ticket holders next year and average gates of 25,000.
Just hoping we can keep the momentum going.
I was never sure how much of the "front three rows" theory was actually true. If it is then we might be able to get the capacity up to 30,000.
It's been rare for Bolton to be in this mode with its support for BWFC. I'd say it last happened in the mid-70s. There were, of course, the Prem years too - but the 70s was tier 2. When this happens we blow the other Lancashire clubs out of the water when it comes to gates. The only possible exception is Burnley but we'll never know as Turf Moor has a much lower capacity than our ground with little prospect of expansion.
In our present mode I do think we'd be capable of 30,000+ gates for the most important Championship games (as happened in the 70s) and the Prem. Let's just hope the mood sticks for some years to come.
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1 minute ago, only1swanny said:
Morley, Iredale, Dan, all squad members, if they know that fine, but at league one, can't see us getting better that are happy to just sit on the sidelines with cameo appearances.
The only way you can improve your stock is through gradually phasing folk out and buying in better. That's how you progress. When they reach the last year of their deals its up for grabs.
Huddersfield Town (H)
in Match Threads 24/5
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The time is now Sharon. No debate. No shade of doubt. It's painfully obvious to everyone. Make the decision.