Matete is suspended after being booked a tackle tonight.

Any volunteers to play in midfield ? 

57 minutes ago, Zico said:

Baxter 

Toal Santos Johnston 

Tutu Sheehan Dempsey GT Schon 

Charles McAtee 

 

Plenty good enough with plenty back up on the bench 

Probably good enough to beat Crawley, Northampton and Burton.

We'd get outmuscled, out thought and out run by a top half team or Wigan, and the front 2 would have their pocket picked by bigger defenders.   

And GT instead of Matete?  It would have to be one of his rare good games.  

11 minutes ago, Johnnyrotten said:

Probably good enough to beat Crawley, Northampton and Burton.

We'd get outmuscled, out thought and out run by a top half team or Wigan, and the front 2 would have their pocket picked by bigger defenders.   

And GT instead of Matete?  It would have to be one of his rare good games.  

GT by default 

If matete goes deep and Sheehan moves up that works for me 

20 hours ago, Krimzon said:

Williams on the right looks like a new player. 

So you make a comment about how a player is going to play the full game after 10mins ffs

18 hours ago, tomski said:

It really won’t get toxic. People are just gonna fuck it off. We’ve had so much bullshit fed down that it’s wrong to get toxic. For what it’s worth I agree as I’m 40 odd and it now feels weird to bay for blood. This man is insufferable though. I didn’t go as I hate going. It’s been my passion for 36 years. Someone will tell me I’m either young. Ungrateful as we nearly didn’t have a club or a weirdo though.

Aye 

You’re right

As much as I disagree with their decision, I can understand why the board might give him one more transfer window & a pop at the playoffs. But I genuinely worry that he’ll be given more time once this season is over. 
 

We can’t keep drifting away though. 

3 minutes ago, London Wanderer said:

Aye 

You’re right

As much as I disagree with their decision, I can understand why the board might give him one more transfer window & a pop at the playoffs. But I genuinely worry that he’ll be given more time once this season is over. 
 

We can’t keep drifting away though. 

What would be annoying would be that we are about 14th at the end of March, then win 4 or 5 end of season games against teams already on the beach or waiting for the play offs, and finish 7th or 8th, with Sharon then convinced we've turned the corner and we have a load of momentum to take into next season. 

As long as we are well clear of relegation, there needs to be a poor end to the season to reflect the season, not a few pointless wins that puts a false shine on "progress". 

21 hours ago, Krimzon said:

Williams on the right looks like a new player. 

Yes if that new player was a shitter version of Nicky Summerbee

42 minutes ago, London Wanderer said:

Aye 

You’re right

As much as I disagree with their decision, I can understand why the board might give him one more transfer window & a pop at the playoffs. But I genuinely worry that he’ll be given more time once this season is over. 
 

We can’t keep drifting away though. 

I cannot understand why he’d be given another window.  
 

The board have written this season off. Stuck in this shite league again next season. 

We are bolton fans from the cradle to the grave. The owners and manager are mere custodians, who aren't bolton fans at all  but are doing a job for which they are well paid.

The vast majority if posters on here are giving their honest and well constructed points of view. In the current climate relations are strained between fans and manager. But unfortunately there is an increasing element of them and us, as the owners are seemingly tolerating incompetence.

 

15 minutes ago, mickbrown said:

I cannot understand why he’d be given another window.  
 

The board have written this season off. Stuck in this shite league again next season. 

I don't think they have written it off.

The statement was fairly clear that he would be here, but the goal remains.

Iirc, it also said we weren't far off. 

To me that says they still think he can get us up, but has to do it this season.

Can't help but feel that has gone now though, and for most of the fans likewise. 

2 minutes ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

I don't think they have written it off.

The statement was fairly clear that he would be here, but the goal remains.

Iirc, it also said we weren't far off. 

To me that says they still think he can get us up, but has to do it this season.

Can't help but feel that has gone now though, and for most of the fans likewise. 

We all know if he stays doing the same old shite we’ll be nowhere near going up. 

11 minutes ago, worthy10 said:

The owners and manager are mere custodians, who aren't bolton fans at all

To be fair, unlike many teams, most Bolton owners have been Bolton people and Wanderers fans, including Eddie Davies, Gordon Hargreaves and the Warburtons.

Right now, we have Michael James, who quietly (and expensively) prevented Anderson from selling the family silver and then partnered with Sharon Britton.

28 minutes ago, Rival Son said:

To be fair, unlike many teams, most Bolton owners have been Bolton people and Wanderers fans, including Eddie Davies, Gordon Hargreaves and the Warburtons.

Right now, we have Michael James, who quietly (and expensively) prevented Anderson from selling the family silver and then partnered with Sharon Britton.

This is the bit that’s confusing me. If it was just SB, then you’d say that she doesn’t quite get it, she’s a businesswoman who believes stability will ultimately prevail, she wants to do football ownership in a different way, she’s backed herself into a corner with public statements about not hiring and firing etc.

But there’s no way that any of that can be said about Michael James. He’s a Bolton fan, he gets it, he’s gone to extreme lengths previously to help save the club. I can’t for the life of me imagine that he’s sitting watching these games thinking anything other than what we all are. I suppose he might be voicing concerns but hasn’t got the voting power to do anything about it, but then I can’t see that SB would flat out disregard his views if he was to be relatively forceful about them.

SB is a godsend in my mind for what she did to save the club a few years ago, and I genuinely wouldn’t want anyone else running the club at the moment. However, we’ve seen how goodwill can be erased within a fickle fan base pretty quickly by stubbornness, with Evatt - I really don’t want her to nail her colours to his mast (per sé) that much that she’s seen in the same bracket by the fans.

I don’t think she’s close at the moment, but there are the rumblings of initial discontent and what she did to save us could eventually be overtaken by what she’s seen to be doing to take us backwards, by blindly sticking with Evatt, wrongly so in my eyes, just like Evatt’s earlier success has now been completely outweighed by the last year.

She’s got to swallow pride and make the obvious decision and delaying it is just damaging he own reputation with the fans, which was otherwise golden!

Does Sharon have the biggest voice on things though, I just don’t know, or is she relaying the thoughts of the whole board when she claims confidence in Evatt. To be fair I could understand it until yesterday because had we won things would have been considerably better but we didn’t and others did. Much I suspect now depends on Sunday, another performance and defeat like yesterday and surely it changes the whole perspective? If we do lose to Lincoln and he’s still not sacked then I genuinely believe it is because the club can’t afford to as some have claimed. The problem is even a win on Sunday changes nothing really and gives Evatt more time he doesn’t really deserve.

I can’t see it continuing until the end of the season especially if they back him further with money in the window. He’s probably got till the end of feb to turn us around. She can’t be oblivious to the discontent and this will only get louder as we continue to flounder. 
 

If he gets some signings, they have to hit the ground running and make a real difference quickly otherwise it’s curtains. 
 

Why do we always have to learn the hard way though? He’s lost the fans so that’s never coming back i’m afraid.

Who would want to play for him. The players don’t look happy. I’d be surprised if we can attract any quality.

3 minutes ago, tomski said:

Who would want to play for him. The players don’t look happy. I’d be surprised if we can attract any quality.

We'll have to pay way over the odds, anyone joining knows their career is Russian roulette on the new manager in a few weeks time.

39 minutes ago, tomski said:

Who would want to play for him. The players don’t look happy. I’d be surprised if we can attract any quality.

Rumour has it that we’re signing the league leader’s best midfielder.

He’ll be fucking seething at coming back.

Edited December 27, 20241 yr by Steejay

13 minutes ago, Steejay said:

Rumour has it that we’re signing the leader’s best midfielder.

He’ll be fucking seething at coming back.

The squeaky voiced mingebag can get a shift put in for us then.

 

 

Thankfully had plans last night so had 24 hours now to digest yesterday. For what it’s worth, my take on things. 

Said to my old man prior to game we’d lose it. We had one available midfielder.  And we’ve not played well all season. Against a very good away side. There was no logical way I could see us winning yesterday. And we’ve got what we deserved. Very fortunate to lead at half time. Second half we were abysmal. 

Evatt was a little stuck yesterday with his midfield options so I’ll hold off being overly critical of the JDC sub. Arfield couldn’t last 90, and I’m not sure SSA could be thrown into that kind of battle (probably shouldn’t be on the bench if that’s the case but I’m guessing a little)

The lack of identity in this team is baffling. Quite honestly, we’ve been awful all season. Right now we’re a mid table side. I’m struggling to understand how it’s happened and why IE insists on this bizarre set up. 

McAtee and Collins shouldn’t be on the pitch at the same time. Actually I’m struggling to make a case for either of them being on the pitch at all. GT struggling at the moment, Jones a shadow of himself, etc. I could go on. 

MJ is not the person on the board supporting IE. He has one supporter, and she ain’t putting her own cash in. She isn’t daft, but she hasn’t been involved in football before BWFC so may be taken aback by how football fans respond to this kind of thing. Supporter pressure always wins out (rightly or wrongly) in these situations. He’ll go eventually as she’ll have no choice. 

I was in the gym the day before the Wigan game and the injured players were in there with a member of the coaching team. CF was the ONLY player taking the workout seriously. The other 4 chatted for 30 mins, and one spent the whole session on his phone, watched in full view by this coach. Whilst I’m not privy to what they should be doing, I’m pretty sure they should have been doing a damn sight more than they were. It tallies up with training ground stuff I know (and a couple of others on here also know). SB’s statement last week alluding to her meeting with the playing staff tells us all we need to know. The culture around the club is wrong, and IE doesn’t know how to change it. 

The idea that me might waste money in January is pretty low I think. If IE was to go, I think Markham and the team will stay, and the type of player we recruit will be fairly similar. A new manager will be expected to work in our model, and that’s the way it should be. Iles made an interesting comment last week about reasons why the club wouldn’t go for Schumacher or Lowe if we needed a manger. He didn’t divulge further, but I do wonder if there’s already a manager out there the club have their eye on.

Apologies for the essay if you’re still reading. I’m as fed up as everyone here. I fear the worst against Lincoln, and questioning my sanity committing to the Mansfield game. 

Last thing. The bond holders event attended by IE and SB in mid Jan could be very interesting. I imagine one or two others off here will be there. If IE is still here, it’ll be interesting to see how the club manage that event. 
 

 

Who is CF?

SB has said from day one she does not think the way football Clubs are run with the high turnover of managers is sustainable and that IE is an essential part of ‘the project’. In so many ways that is admirable.

In some ways I think the team deserves a bit of leeway regarding Saturday, with the players we were missing from midfield - Sheehan, Matete and Dempsey - it was not a surprising result.
 

However how did we get here ? Maybe the most important part of a succesful managers job is to get the best of the players and improve them. Dapo was by far our best player but did not ‘fit in’ so decided to go elsewhere, Big Vic was a regular scorer at Burton but has turned into a joke. Collins outstanding player in the division, now looks like he does not give a fuck, Morley 18?months or so ago looked a real player, was awful last season but is now back playing well. Dion has been a 20 goal a season player but now rarely plays 20 minutes.

The new system IE invented was a disaster, changing from it is one thing but the squad is so unbalanced with a constant stream of underperforming forwards and woefully short in midfield.

Maybe the most worrying aspect of the current situation is the story about players not giving 100% in training. That is a terrible indictment of the attitude and cultural that the manager has instilled in the squad. 
 

Watching back the goals from Boxing Day what the fuck were we doing ? The first goal is just too easy and the second was school boy stuff, the guy just rounds down the right and no one moves and no one seems to be telling anyone else to move. I said before the Wigan game that a win could turn our season on its head, they had no form and looking at bottom 4 we had had a few results, win that and get the crowd back on side. Instead we shit out, and 1 point from last 3 games, and are 3 points ahead of Wigan.  
 

IE has shown absolutely zero ability to change things around, they are just getting worse. The players confidence is shot, the Manager just looks lost and desperate, leadership is non existent, the fans are just giving up - the attendances figures massively hide the actual numbers through the gate.

It is time. 

7 minutes ago, tomski said:

Who is CF?

Forino

13 minutes ago, thebells said:

 

Evatt was a little stuck yesterday with his midfield options 

 

 

He could have changed the system to suit and stuck both Arfield and Sharples in there. Even shove McAtee or CMG or Forrester.

Pack the midfield rather than leaving it wide open then putting a full back in there.

 

Tutu and Schon on the wings and Williams and Cogley at full backs.

GT and Arfield/Sharples/CMG/Lolos/Forrester in center mid.

McAtee and Collins or Charles up front.

So fucking simple.

1 minute ago, gonzo said:

Tutu and Schon on the wings and Williams and Cogley at full backs.

GT and Arfield/Sharples/CMG/Lolos/Forrester in center mid.

McAtee and Collins or Charles up front.

So fucking simple.

At fucking last!!!!