paulhanley

In Spring we've got Stockport (h), Wigan (a), Blackpool (a). I don't see results in any of those given how spineless we are. That'll take toxicity up even further. That's when the axe is likeliest to fall.

It's all just marking time. He was lucky to get a second chance after the fiasco at Wembley. He bounced back from a poor start but then no Bolton Wanderers side should be going to Stockport and losing 5-0 or losing three times on the spin at home to Wigan. Full stop. Those things are unforgivable and quite frankly if Lazarus was the manager, he's not coming back from epoch making shit-shows like those. The fact that the board and Evatt think they have immunity against events that besmirch our history such as these tells you a lot. They do not understand BWFC or its fanbase and they are not delivering what is required. That's hard work and a battling mentality when needed, pragmatism and the necessary skill. Most of all it means second tier football, not year after year of League One drudge and flat track bullying.

Compare the way of managing injuries and fitness under Sam's time to this current shambles. Chalk and cheese - and Sam's time was 20 years ago, there'll have been advances since then. There's just no excuses. Of course it doesn't help when we keep signing players who have a clear injury ridden track record. Anyway, Santos. Not mentally strong enough or consistently good enough for the Championship. If he was there'd have been clubs in for him. Like in so many other areas it is time for the club to move on from this "project" and its components.

The hapless bloke on the microphone at half-time used to cop it a lot. Brutal, Boltonian humour.

Comically inept. We should come out to the Fr Ted theme tune. Sharon: We are right, you are wrong. Evatt out.

Wheeling and dealing is fine when one and two years in to a job. When you're five years in and you're selling players you bought and lauded - that's when the change a club really needs is the manger.

Getting £750K for a 29 year old striker we paid £300K for three years ago is financially decent work. Unless he's thinking CMG will actually stay fit and can play up top (or that Lolos can play there) we need a replacement. That's the fear. What on earth will he spend on next and how will he fit that person in to his system. To use the modern day footballing parlance, this is a "project" that I long stopped believing in.

They still wouldn't forgive him given his track record with the murderers.

No doubt we'd turn him in to bloody Terry Thomas.

Yep. I understand the fixture congestion angle. However, they should have retained replays in the first three rounds or at the very least for the first and third given their significance as stages at which new tiers in the pyramid are introduced to the competition.

I notice his big pal Rob Edwards got potted at Luton recently. All amidst their fans being hugely frustrated as to why he was doing the same thing over and over again and somehow expecting different results. Albert Einstein meets Ian Evatt and his management buddies.

His players. His mess.

That type of stuff is real "writing on the wall" moment normally. ... but with FV we're not normal.

It turned in to that for me after the epoch making disgraces v Stockport and Wigan. These powder-puff surrenders are not Bolton Wanderers Football Club is about.

Indeed so. Maybe it's the incredible support they've had that gives the board a false impression of how much latitude they've got. FV saved us and they've (to a large extent correctly) had kid glove treatment from the fanbase for much longer than any of their predecessors in the boadroom. But they've now run out of road. They just don't yet realise it. As a result of this head in the sand approach they are going to see an escalation of a side to the BWFC fan base they've not yet experienced but which all of us know is there. It's going to be a bitter pill for them and its their own fault. Home truths need speaking now - in whatever form. Evatt out.

Yep. Football kept simple. Everyone can see what/who the problem is at this football club. Everyone except those inside the groupthink bubble in the boardroom. As such they are also deeply culpable. Dark days like today are what we need to get rid of him. We should not have to be put through this as fans when we can all see the patently obvious. Our board need a long hard look at themselves. I hate having to say stuff like this. I hate Saturdays being the non-event that they are just now. But we know what we're on about and the board just don't. They can't otherwise this clown would not still be in a job. What other conclusion is there to draw?

Yes you don't have to be a midfield hard-man in the old Tommy Hutchinson/Graeme Souness/Steve McMahon mold to have the ability to put your foot in. You only have to think back to Per Frandsen - skilfull and athletic but wasn't without the ability to tackle. You need a decent amount of that in the make-up of a midfield.

Might be a good player. I should be excited about pinching one of the better players from a team in the same division. Question is, is Evatt going to drown him in tactics and coach all the individuality out of him? I am at "peak cynicism" with Evatt and thus am conflicted between wanting BWFC to do well and wanting a fresh start in the manager's seat. I don't think the former is possible without the latter.

Some good thoughtful posts on here yesterday and today. Most folk seem of a similar mind - the way the game has developed is good but the baby has gone out with the bathwater in certain instances. Maybe at some point there'll be a measure of revisionism. I also agree with those who have pointed out that man-management skills seem on the decline in favour of people who are one dimensional tacticians. Reminds of a Cloughie saying "There's a lot of crap talked about tactics by people who wouldn't know how to win a game of dominoes" .

Not condoning brainless social media posts in saying this ... but "reprehensible" is a word that could equally be applied to three straight home defeats against Wigan and a 5-0 defeat at Stockport County. About time they looked at their own "reprehensible" behaviour towards the fanbase.

I can remember him changing to three central defenders In the Autumn of the season after he got us promoted (93/4). We went on a big unbeaten run and got a foothold in our new division after a really patchy start in August and September. He didn't stick with it, but it got us through. A lot of those games were draws but it needed doing and he did it. And this was three centre backs with two full backs, not wing backs. Good management, read the situation, saw we were struggling defensively and shored it all up for a time.

If you read my original post I am careful to say that the change in mindset has been very beneficial. We've largely eradicated Charles Hughes dinosaur football and English footballers are now far more composed and technically gifted. My point is that the baby has gone out with the bathwater. Especially on the defensive side of the game there were things passed from generation to generation for the very good reason that they worked. I list some above and others have added. What's the point of increasing and polishing your attacking play if the price is losing defensive solidity. Some of the passing around in a team's own penalty area and goalkeeper errors are embarrassing. Who the hell stopped coaching keepers how to position themselves to avoid getting done at the near post for instance? It's maddening.

Not just me then thank goodness. You begin to doubt your own sanity when you see things consistently going on during a football match that are madness. There are so many stats in football now, has nobody ever done a cost benefit analysis of playing the ball out from the your own six yard box - how many goals are conceded compared to scored? I don't know but I reckon it'd blow the whole nonsensical approach out of the water. Meanwhile there are still some people in the game who understand the value of sound defence. I hate to say Shaun Maloney is one (despite coming unstuck yesterday). Another is Scott Parker at Burnley. Here's what he said after yesterday's game at Ewood. If Evatt reads these comments it'll be like someone is speaking to him in an alien language. "What this team have done defensively this year has been nothing short of sensational and I get it's not the most glamorous part of the game but I've been around long enough to know it's the bedrock and foundation of any team."

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.