Rival Son

No they haven’t. You seem to have erased the 2019/20 season from your memory.

I think this poll should be closed immediately. At exactly 50:50 it probably truly reflects both the feelings of the fans, as well as the right course of action. There are very valid pluses and minuses to both retaining and removing Evatt.

Are you sure? Toal’s inability to link effectively with Ogbeta and Thomason at Wembley, due to his lack of a left foot, was patently one of the biggest problems. Add that to Santos’ lack of pure footballing skills and the fact that Jones simply isn’t good enough at centre back, then the back three was the biggest issue for me. If Johnson is fully fit for next season 🤞, then Johnson and Iredale should be the only options considered for left centre back, amongst the current squad.

Toal, Forrester and Santos, IMHO. Nothing tells me our “leader” is undroppable, based on the last four months.

Forrester and Iredale should not be in competition with each other. Assuming we continue with three centre backs, LCB should only be covered by Johnson, Iredale or Ashworth. There were a number of things wrong with the defence last season and one the biggest was constantly playing right footers at LCB.

Are you sure? The core back three last season and on Saturday was Jones (not a centre half) Santos (overrated) and Toal (out of position).

I’d suggest removing Nlundulu is far more urgent than any other forward. I may be a solo voice on this, but think Bod has been very unlucky in front of goal, this season. Overall, I’d say he hits the ball cleaner than all bar Collins of the forwards. On a number of occasions his contact with the ball has been almost perfect, with the downside being it’s gone exactly where the keeper expects it. The header against Derby is a case in point. He had a perfect finish at Carlisle chalked off for an awful offside decision. By all means replace, but only if we’re sure better will be arriving. And Evatt’s track record on strikers isn’t great.

Long before those two. It was Allardyce or Megson. I remember playing Zenit, under Megson, in horrendous conditions, where we had to extend the pitch to meet minimum UEFA Cup regulations. Inside the revised touchline was a groove, where the linesman ran up and down. In no time at all there was a foot-wide stream about 4 feet inside the touchline.

That’s correct. It’s a team game, where players cover for each other. So, Santos moves to cover Jones, Toal moves to cover Santos, and Williams doesn’t. You are correct that the initial fault lay with Jones, but it’s a collective role to cover for such mistakes. Your are also correct about the costly Santos mistake in the second half, but this is a classic case of whataboutery. The conversation relates to your comment that “[Williams] did really well defensively in both play off games”. its my view that he didn’t.

I disagree on this. In the away leg, when Toal was pulled across to cover Santos, he was very slow to spot the need to cover the space, which gave Cosgrove all the time to score their opener. in the home leg, a very weak clearance header (can you have a mis-head, like a mis-kick?) allowed Barnsley to immediately return the ball into box, from which Cosgrove again scored. His defensive play is very poor and the stats show Ogbeta is far and away our most productive wing back, in terms of creating goals.

To be honest, with the possible exception of Vic, that applies to next season, whichever league we’re in.

If we go up, we need at least two strikers. Only Collins and Charles are good enough to come with us. And, to be honest, we need better finishers than Dion. Vic is decent League 1, but that’s his level. We should command a fee for him but, maybe, not what we paid. Jerome will be another year older and has to be looking at a switch to coaching. Dan: we just need to get rid!

Not necessarily. If we’d had VAR on Tuesday night, with a ref who’s used to having it as a backup, the ref is likely to waved play on for Collins’ early disallowed goal, with VAR confirming there was no foul. There is nothing wrong with VAR. Just poor referring decisions.

Dempsey is our number 2 midfielder, behind Sheehan, and ahead of Maghoma, Thomason and Morley. It’s all about opinions. For me, Jones is nowhere near our top 3 centre halfs, but better than Cogley at RWB. However, Evatt doesn’t see it that way.

Surely you come over Woodhead from Barnsley?

QPR were formed in Queens Park in 1882. They only moved to Loftus Road 35 years later. Ditto for Crystal Palace, who were formed in 1905, but only moved to Selhurst in 1924. Both of which are similar to a certain Bolton Wanderers, who were formed in Deane, moved to Burnden and now play in Lostock; three distinct areas of Bolton.

I considered that perspective, because the same could be said of Queens Park, which was named in honour Queen Victoria and then housing was developed around it, and this wider area named as Queens Park. I considered it different because Crystal Palace was a building constructed in a different part of London - specifically Hyde Park - for the Great Exhibition. It was then dismantled and moved to an existing area of South London, called Penge Common, in Sydenham Hill. Over time, the area gradually became known as Crystal Palace. I suppose QPR and Crystal Palace could be considered similar - a constructed building and a constructed park. The difference is that Queens Park was not physically moved.

I’m relatively new to this site, so just getting to know what’s what, and who’s who. Well done @Zico and all involved. I’ll definitely chuck a few quid in, next time funds need a top-up.

Good shout. Named after a building!

Queens Park and Forest Green are both, admittedly very small, areas of Paddington and Nailsworth, respectively. The Bolton equivalent would be to start a team in Morris Green, and retain the name Morris Green having made league status!

And both of these teams, originally included their area name: Burslem Port Vale and Woolwich Arsenal.

I don’t believe it does - but will include the 1.5+k Bolton fans in South Lower. The club usually only announce home sales in advance. We’ll see tomorrow

Add to the >2k Barnsley fans and that’s 24+k, with today and tomorrow to go. Likely to be at or close to 25k. The gaps are predominantly in the North … which is the family stand. Given it’s a school night, and live on TV, I’d say it’s a pretty good turnout.

Agreed. People already forgetting that Toal being dragged out of position to cover the man that Santos lost, created the space through which Cosgrove scored Barnsley’s goal. I’ve said it before, but Santos is very good at some things, and very average at others.