paulhanley

Its the win that counts and we got it. We are in a handy position. We show enough to make us think we'll be in the play off mix come Spring but perhaps not yet enough to show we have it in us for top two re consistency and ruthlessness. Those issues manifest more away than at home though. For now let's park that concern until next week. Unbeaten at home still is enough reason for a few pints to slide down a treat later.

After 10 games trends do begin to emerge and there are definite observations on our away form. We have dominated all five games really, possibly not Barnsley quite so much until the sending off. However we have conceded first in every single one of them and missed chances have preceded that first goal (Blackpool not so much as that was an early concession). We have some great players but the average age is young and there will not be much first hand knowledge about what it takes to win promotion. It takes relentless ruthlessness, long strings of wins, scruffy 0-1 away wins at places where they make it difficult and home form that rarely wavers. It takes Saturday/Tuesday/Saturday concentration. There can be very few examples of after the lord mayor's show like yesterday. They have got the talent and a few could easily thrive at Championship level. But they need to toughen up mentally and understand the need to be professional and clinical at all times. SS knows all this because he's done it. Time to sit them down and spell it out. And yes.. this place is a difficult read when we lose but that is one thing, whenever Bolton Wanderers are in the third tier there is an impatience to get out. We all want the same thing.

I agree that people should not go overboard and there are some examples above, especially when people are questioning SS's tenure. However I think people whose aspiration for the club to get out of this league are entitled to feel worried about three points out of five away games. We all want the same thing, Championship football and we are keen to see momentum build in that direction. There is bound to be frustration.

A very dispiriting result. Three points from five away games is getting us nowhere I am afraid. There was always a danger of after the lord mayor's show today but to succumb to it like this is a setback. Two steps forward one step back. To get promotion it has to be week in and week out ruthlessness.

A first away win of the season would signal that we are 100 per cent on the up and contending. We certainly need to avoid "after the lord mayor's show" syndrome after last week. Would take a scruffy 0-1 all day long. Said it last week - we are due a pen in the league.

Sounded like McQueen to me. But Crerand was ten times worse.

Good for him to get off the mark at the club after his injury affected start.

SKD giving the filth what they deserve. I guess old purple nose was not hopping about quite the same when Evans did for Stuart Holden. Co-commentator, Gordon McQueen. I will contain my comments there given he is no longer with us. Suffice to say it must have taken him a long time to recover his confidence after 22 December 1978 and his attempts at marking Franky Worthy.

Does anyone else have the slightest tinge of regret that we did not plough and get six or seven against the cunts? Anyway. I have been on that soccerbase head to head thing. Still work to do v these. We have only ever doubled them once (92/3 promotion season) so bring on January. Our overall record v them in the league? Home: W8 D6 L9. Away: W6 D7 L9 Total: W14 D13 L18 Add in all cup games: Home W10 D7 L10 Away W9 D8 L11 Total: W:19 D15 L21 (their scabby league cup penalty shoot out win earlier this decade counts as a draw) A win January cannot even it up for us but it gets us closer.

There is a phenomenon known for decades in rugby league circles as "the Wigan walk". It happened when the egg chasing pie eaters were being hammered. It involved fans streaming for the exits much earlier than those of other teams ever would, even in the harshest circumstances. This was clearly a cross-code thing that came special to our benighted neighbouring town. It was observable at Springfield Park - not least given they had to walk from their side terrace all the way around the goal opposite the away end to get out. Such was the layout of that particular shithole. Given our win in April was a last minute do and only 0-1 there was no chance of inducing the Wigan walk. We had obviously not done it for a good while before that. The youngest generation of BWFC may not have witnessed it before. It is always a pleasure to see them scuttling for the exits in a hurry to get back to the tracksuit bottom mecca of the universe. Hangdog expressions galore.

We got promoted against them in 1993 with 21000 on and it was pretty much 20000 in 2000 when we beat them 2-0 with Ricketts and Rankine scoring for us. If we played them next week it would be a similar gate to yesterday.

Probably younger ones. However ....once we escape this league and start playing Blackburn/PNE/Burnley on a regular basis with Wigan left trailing in our wake, they may see things with more perspective. Not to say that they are not a genuine derby rival. Anyway - this is largely semantics. We beat the cunts.

Yes you are right. Just saying it is not really any different to a Blackburn/Burnley/PNE game and they are not arch-rivals like Blackpool/PNE or Burnley/Blackburn. We are in an area that offers us loads of derbies. Wigan should be glad to have made it on to that list because in our earlier years of playing them they registered in the same way that Fleetwood do now. Enjoy it all the same. I certainly did! Purely as regards this fixture let us not take our foot off the gas. Smashing them at theirs in January will need the same focus and intensity as yesterday.

It would have hurt them to their marrows. Comparing themselves to us, obsessing about us, wanting to be as good as us - it is what is all about for them. Their three wins at ours this decade will have satisfied them almost more than a promotion. We are a part of their DNA and they will be sore today. Sackcloth and ashes time. I just wish Evatt had never handed them those memories on a silver plate and we need to go to the Whelan peg leg stadium in 2026 and do only our second ever double over them (first one was 92/3 a promotion season from this level). Three wins on the bounce v them regains lost ground in way our present two still does not quite do so.

I have come to the following opinion on this. I cannot describe myself as being unbothered by these any more. Neither can most Bolton fans and the delight at the drubbing we handed them yesterday is clear to see. However it is pretty much the same delight as (for instance) when we stuffed Blackburn 4-0 at home a few years ago. Wigan are not an arch- rival as per their ambition, but they are up there with Blackburn, Burnley and PNE now in the rivalry stakes. Probably not quite there among my generation but definitely among the younger lot. Anyway they will be sulking in their hovels this morning. A brutal reminder of who is the biggest club: a 4-1 pasting in front of the kind of gate they could only dream about.

Was thinking that. The account is not yet settled. We need to double these cunts this season. And then forget about them.

Very, very satisfying. Part of me wishes we had gone on to get six or seven but that is being greedy. If you are reading this and you are from Wigan: Not so fucking smug now eh?

No scoreline predictions from me. I am sure many will predict 1-1 given our recent form. I will however observe that we have not had a penalty in the league as yet and we have not scored a very early goal.

If you are a 20 year old wearing pie-stained Lonsdales whose only escapism from the malaise of Wiganesque despond is when this match comes around then I suppose you build your own myths and legends.

In recent times it has us being over-confident and paying the price.

Everyone who disagrees with them is a far-right fascist. It is the same old three card trick. The Soviets used it just the same. If you disagree with someone, don't debate them, declare their views unacceptable by whatever means suits you that day, make them persona non grata, shut them down before anyone else gets big ideas. Thing is its been seen through now. People are no longer scared of it and they will call it out.

Paul Embery. A man of the left who very much has the number of the wokery. Hitting the nail on the head yet once more.

Unlike Blackpool this is a fixture in the more normal derby template were home/away advantage seems not to count for as much. We are all too aware of our recent appalling home record against this shower of shit. Even though we have only recorded the one win, our away form against them is much more stable. They can no longer claim an unbeaten 10 year record against us overall - but they still claim not to have lost at ours for that length of time. It needs putting to rights. They are going to be a handful. Not the best side in the division but decent enough and always massively up for it in this fixture. We have to match that before we talk about anything else and we need to avoiding swanning in to this game like its any other. I worry about us going a goal down - but if that happens I hope we as fans keep behind the team. At the very least here is hoping the tame surrenders of the Evatt era are a thing of the past.

Not advisable. But its existence tells you everything you need to know about these.

Maybe they should put this up on the dressing room noticeboard. Still the best part of two weeks to go and already they are ramping it up. For the pie men this is the equivalent of England v Scotland for the jocks. From the 80s onwards England wised up and started matching the Jocks for being geared up for the game. We need to do the same. And let us face it is in the home fixture where the worst embarrassments have come over the last five or six years. Wigan Athletic FC - Gallery | Derby Day Delight at Bolton Wanderers throughout the years