Reading (A)

[Whitesince63]

So are we winning this or what? This Reading team is nowhere near the Championship side having to rely mainly now on young, inexperienced players. Surely this should be another 3 points and a chance for Wanderers to show our class and push on to the automatics. I’m going 2-0 to the Whites. Victor for a brace.

[Tonge moor green jacket]

Hope the travelling hasn't affected any of our players.

[Lostock Whites]

First away of the season for me, looking like a great following, nearly sold out just under 2,000 👏

Tricky one this, no game is a given in this league, however, echoing what I said before the Derby game, we have to be getting wins even at this stage at the season, not just settling for a point if we want to be aiming for the top 2 places. 

Reading away can always been a tricky fixture, but there's no excuse, they're struggling and have been really poor, 3 points minimum.

If we start like we did against Derby, Cheltenham, Boro in recent weeks, we will blow them away.

We should be respectful but also confident in every single match that we go in to that we can win.

Edited September 13, 2023 by Lostock Whites

[Whitesince63]

Just confirmed by the club that Reading have been docked a further 3 points which were pending for not depositing the 125% salary amount into their bank. That won’t please the players will it, so we may be playing them at an opt tune time?

[Biggish Dave]

If we start and maintain a high tempo we should win. They have a small squad so surely the quality on their bench can't be all that special.

Going for a convincing 1-3 away win

[Cheese]

https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/23787647.reading-receive-three-point-deduction-efl/

[Leyther_Matt]

Either they’re going to down tools, or have a real siege mentality and come out flying. Let’s hope it’s the former. Could do with some of our dozens of shirkers from the last decade or so to give them a bell. 

[tomski]

This has gift of 3 points back written all over this. 
 

I want to batter these

[Dr. Feelgood]

4 hours ago, tomski said:

This has gift of 3 points back written all over this. 

Well, they've just had a further 3pts deducted for 'financial irregularities'.

[RUREADY2ROLL]

How many tickets did we get and how many has been sold

[Duck Egg]

5 minutes ago, RUREADY2ROLL said:

How many tickets did we get and how many has been sold

Just over 1800 and sold 1700 apparently 

[Traf]

2 hours ago, RUREADY2ROLL said:

How many tickets did we get and how many has been sold

More than we need and not all of them 😉

[Traf]

Anyone staying around for drinks after the game or are you all heading straight back?

We're staying over if anyone fancies a beer or two.

[Leyther_Matt]

6 hours ago, Traf said:

Anyone staying around for drinks after the game or are you all heading straight back?

We're staying over if anyone fancies a beer or two.

We’re on the 7.15 back so can’t rule out one or two near the station 👍 

Edited September 14, 2023 by Leyther_Matt
Edit - we’re actually on the 18:15, good job I checked! 🙈

[Wanderlust]

I'd have thought that the point deduction would be used to motivate them if anything. Not the players' fault and it's not the fans' fault so there'll be a burning sense of injustice - that we know all too well - and that could make them dangerous. Selles will use it to wind  them up and the home crowd will be baying. They've already beaten top of the table Stevenage at the Madejski or whatever it's called these days so they certainly won't be in awe of us.

I know that whenever I mention due diligence and potential issues that we need to be aware of (and therefore need to plan to overcome) a few blinkered fools think I'm being negative about our prospects (which is bullshit of course) but if I was Evatt I'd make damned sure the players were aware of the fact they'll be hurting and stamp out any complacency, prepare accordingly and fire us up for the game.

As always, this will come down to how well we perform.

As an aside, Reading's points deduction has lifted Wigan out of the relegation zone FFS - so after our victory on Saturday I'll be rooting for Reading

[Whitesince63]

49 minutes ago, Wanderlust said:

I'd have thought that the point deduction would be used to motivate them if anything. Not the players' fault and it's not the fans' fault so there'll be a burning sense of injustice - that we know all too well - and that could make them dangerous. Selles will use it to wind  them up and the home crowd will be baying. They've already beaten top of the table Stevenage at the Madejski or whatever it's called these days so they certainly won't be in awe of us.

I know that whenever I mention due diligence and potential issues that we need to be aware of (and therefore need to plan to overcome) a few blinkered fools think I'm being negative about our prospects (which is bullshit of course) but if I was Evatt I'd make damned sure the players were aware of the fact they'll be hurting and stamp out any complacency, prepare accordingly and fire us up for the game.

As always, this will come down to how well we perform.

As an aside, Reading's points deduction has lifted Wigan out of the relegation zone FFS - so after our victory on Saturday I'll be rooting for Reading

We don’t know how it will affect the players Lusty, nor the fans who seem pretty cheesed off with what’s going on and certainly want the owner out. I’m sure their manager will try to fire the players up but different players will react in different ways. It doesn’t seem as though the financial side will be sorted out any time soon if the owner can’t get money out of China, assuming he actually has it in the first place of course, so it’s entirely possible there will be more penalties. That’s got to depress whoever you are. As for our players, they should already be fired up and looking to go out there and get the 3 points which may take us top so I hope IE doesn’t have to do much to enthuse them?

[Wanderlust]

49 minutes ago, Whitesince63 said:

We don’t know how it will affect the players Lusty, nor the fans who seem pretty cheesed off with what’s going on and certainly want the owner out. I’m sure their manager will try to fire the players up but different players will react in different ways. It doesn’t seem as though the financial side will be sorted out any time soon if the owner can’t get money out of China, assuming he actually has it in the first place of course, so it’s entirely possible there will be more penalties. That’s got to depress whoever you are. As for our players, they should already be fired up and looking to go out there and get the 3 points which may take us top so I hope IE doesn’t have to do much to enthuse them?

It could go that way but I'm not sure. When we hit the wall financially it sorted out the fighters from the whingers. I think the support our kids got when we were up against it was second to none - no expectations, a sense of injustice - whatever - it all conspired to lift the crowd to roar them on and they upped their performances for as long as they could.

Our current players have been hyped to hell though - burdened with the favourites label, praised in the media - it would be easy to get cocky and complacent  which is why we get a succession of opposition managers telling us how great we are in the media pre match.

One of Evatt's biggest challenges this season is to keep them hungry, humble and totally focused on each and every game.

[Marc505]

43 minutes ago, Wanderlust said:

It could go that way but I'm not sure. When we hit the wall financially it sorted out the fighters from the whingers. I think the support our kids got when we were up against it was second to none - no expectations, a sense of injustice - whatever - it all conspired to lift the crowd to roar them on and they upped their performances for as long as they could.

 

That didn't stop us taking a series of absolute tonkings home and away. I want us to go there and muller these all over the shop, 7-1 if at all possible.

[captainmed]

I’d take a draw but these are the games you really need to be winning.

CMG out for upto 6 weeks I see.

Not good news.

Edited September 14, 2023 by captainmed

[Wanderlust]

4 minutes ago, captainmed said:

I’d take a draw but these are the games you really need to be winning.

CMG out for upto 6 weeks I see.

Not good news.

CMG has an article in the BN saying how he is "the right man at the right time" for our promotion push, immediately followed by another article saying he's out for weeks. We've seen this before where a player talks us up in the BN and isn't picked for the next game or has an injury he's not told us about. Starting to dread player interviews in the BN

Anyhoo the "flexibilility" Evatt talked about when justifying listing just 18 players in the squad will have to come into play now so we'll see how that pans out.

[Farnywhite]

On 13/09/2023 at 11:22, Tonge moor green jacket said:

Hope the travelling hasn't affected any of our players.

Looks like a couple have come back with knocks though evatt isn’t saying who and Gomes out for 6 weeks because of the Salford game 

[Tonge moor green jacket]

Cmg is a disappointment, but not the end of the world.

A sub mainly so far, and we'll need to be able to cope with injuries. 

[TrickyTrotter]

Ashworth didn't make the bench for Wales U21. It had about 12 players on it. Suspect he might have picked up a knock.

[TrickyTrotter]

1794 sold. Great effort.

[radcliffe white]

12 minutes ago, TrickyTrotter said:

1794 sold. Great effort.

If that’s off Twitter that’s port vale sales