Tombwfc

Wouldn't want to watch that every week.

Who else do you expect to be working on a feed of Bolton vs Mansfield on a Tuesday night, watched by 10k people? I accept people are paying a lot for Sky generally, but there's no way it'd be viable to staff a full EFL programme with seasoned pros every week. Back when we were in the Premier League, the only option of watching us was to run the malware gauntlet to find a dodgy, buffering stream on Al Jazeera #57. We literally don't know how good we've got it.

Given he's contributed more than Cissokho overall this season and is here permanently, I'd rather be giving Gale the opportunity and the minutes. But in fairness SS's man management has appeared pretty good this year (keeping McAtee onside when he clearly didn't fancy him) so hopefully it was a temporary demotion.

If Lincoln beat Northampton we need to win. If Lincoln draw/lose to Northampton we need to win. A great opportunity to add a properly excellent result to this recent run of form.

They scored a really good goal, then opened us up and made some perfectly good chances on the deck in the second half. We chucked a ball in the box and a big bloke nodded it in. So be it, who cares. But I don't really get the criticism of their style of play. Seems like the kind of stuff we'd get under Big Sam from people who'd made their mind up before a ball was kicked. We also average 0.8 goals a game away from home, so we're hardly a thrilling watch either.

"7 points isn't a huge lead with so many games left", but 9 would've put us out of the promotion race? I don't really get that. It is possible to read too much into games like today. If we'd lost, beat Reading and Northampton upset Lincoln we'd be in the same position we are now that everybody seems fairly happy with. Lincoln remain in an excellent position to go up, if they have a mad wobble from here the odd point likely won't make much of a difference. Wycombe are the comparison most people make, and they finished 8 points behind Wrexham in the end.

That'd be a pretty glass half empty view on on ImpsWays surely. They're 9 & 10 points clear of Stockport and Bradford, who play each other on Tuesday while they've got Northampton at home. If we're thinking they're about to give up 10 points to Bradford, they'd probably still be fucked with a 12 point lead. That's a proper collapse either way. Could've put the game to bed today and got punished by SSD, but hard to make the case that a point doesn't favour them.

A point is ok in the circumstances, but it's another missed opportunity that we haven't really grasped. At some point draws aren't going to be enough. Winning on Tuesday is massive and would probably be our best result of the season.

In the absolute best case scenario for us, on Saturday Lincoln will have 61 points from 31 games. They'll still be three points ahead with the chance to make it six if they win their game in hand. It's massive game on Saturday, but I think it's weird to pretend that it's a referendum on whether they are any good. They obviously are. And if we spank them 5-0 it'll still be a significant challenge for us to go beyond them.

Respect to anyone who watches lots of football matches and highlights of other leagues outside of Bolton and the Premier League. They are better informed than me without a doubt. But really, there are people scouting players game after game that struggle to judge players. If you can accurately scout footballers based off limited highlights you have a talent worth millions.

Funny that last week the idea was that we'd dodged a bullet by missing out on Kenny in the summer, and Ryan Hardie was the prolific striker we need. Now Kenny is the man and Hardie is a crock. Never seen either of them play to any great degree, and there is bound to be risks signing any forward in January. If they were a sure thing they'd be playing for their parent clubs. We needed a striker, we've got one of the strikers we've had a long term interest in. Can't ask for much more than that. Let's see how it all plays out. If we all predicted now what the games, goals and general fan sentiment would be towards our new signings by the end of the season, none of us would be correct.

I have 0 ITK sources and have done no research, but it feels pretty rare for a deal to get to this stage and not happen.

Conway as an above average starting player is one of the best finds this season. He just needs a rest.

I think he'll be starting for us this weekend. But even if we sold him, I'm sure part of the deal would be for him pick up a knock in training before Saturday.

When we didn't get Kenny we signed Forss. It hasn't worked out but his record was exactly what we needed at the time. If you include Papa John's games (broadly equivalent to the SPL) then Forss has five goals this season and Kenny has six. Basically, if we were all in on Kenny we did a decent job pulling an alternative out of the bag.

Hardie isn't doing anything for a few more weeks, as per Parky in that article. And as someone who'd ideally like to shift him, I doubt he's exaggerating. All these things that look like selection problems have a habit of sorting themselves out.

At some point this season people will realise that we're not going to play the same team and formation week in and week out. Dalby has done relatively well despite never looking threatening. Burstow's loss of form looks terminal. There's absolutely a role for another striker.

No shame involved here, we were shit and spiralling. He's done an admirable job steering us through a difficult period, but we're still a way off from it being job done. I've nothing against SS at all, it's entirely results based. Keep winning or be under pressure is the reality of being at a club looking/needing to get promoted.

I think going back and attributing team results to one player - or one formation - is oversimplifying. Erhahon was injured when we beat Huddersfield, Cardiff and then Port Vale 4-0. He started against Doncaster, Northampton and Burton and we were shit. If he plays like he did in the first half yesterday he'll definitely be an asset. Seems a stretch to say he's been a key to positive results all along. Joel Randall also has a 100% record when playing 90mins and only one defeat when starting.

A lot of talk about how shit the league is, but there are always teams who'll make a run and get up towards 85-92 points. We just need to make sure we're one of them. Shows what the standard is for promotion that we've taken 13 points out of 15, but so have Stockport and Lincoln. Need to keep piling on the wins and eventually something will give.

I'd have told Morley not to try on Tuesday too if I knew there was £750k on the table for him. Been a good player though so I hope he does well.

Strangely, considering the team gets leaked on here every week, the club have been pretty good at keeping transfer business under wraps. There was some talk of Apter but I hadn't heard Blackett-Taylor's name mentioned at all. Not saying we aren't in for Hardie, I'm sure we are, but I expect we'll sign at least two players before the deadline and one will be someone not being talked about currently.

As basic as it is, however you define a number 10, for us it's as simple as 'they're playing in attack, they need to be creating and scoring goals'. McAtee, Forss, Randall and Dempsey have played in advanced positions and combined for six goals and one assist. People are raving about Dalby's hold up play, but someone has to have the responsibility of putting the ball in the net. Both signings this week have decentish scoring records for wingers - Apter got 8 in L1 last year, CBT got 8 in half a season before he joined Derby. But we still need a goalscorer if the Burstow who started the season is gone for good.

People think there's undue negativity on here at times... imagine if we'd just dicked Bradford at home and someone was panicking about a side we had six points and a game in hand over? I don't think they'll be having sleepless nights about Big Sam and his Super White army just yet. Keep this run going and beat them at home in a few weeks, then let's see where we are.

Absolutely, although I'm a bit more open to the fact that time doesn't generally equal success in this league. Last season has a part to play too. Regardless of how much SS is truly to blame for it, the reality is that from him getting the job up to the Wigan game our fans had been watching us pick up the points of a midtable League One club for a year. That's probably not helped people take to him. He's done well to steer us away from a full blown crisis though, and hopefully with a couple more in he can start to really turn things around.