It was on my telly yesterday , shitty day outside , not really watching it until last 10 minutes.

After they said , United keeper had not released the ball to his back 4 defenders in the whole game.

Every single ball had been given the boot by the keeper ,bring it on and lets get away from negative possession that leads to nowhere.

Its supposed to be an entertainment !

Lets see people battle for a ball booted down field father than defenders fucking up because they cant even pass a ball square in front of the goal area.

1 hour ago, Didledee said:

Different preferences I get it, but is this nostalgia looking back at how successful we were under Sam and our long ball tactics? we had great individual talent back then too, so if softened our main approach, which was for large parts,(for example) N'Gotty long to K.Davies (avoiding the mids) hoping for a flick on or a bring down for then someone like Nolan to run onto or link up with.

It's fine to mix things up, but the long ball negative stuff isn't great on the eyes, well it's fine when you win of course lol.

Most 'long balls' were into the channels FF or diouf/stelios to run on to than to SKD

Some incredible goals are scored from playing out from the back & through a press. 
 

Can’t beat intricate moves in the opponents final 3rd either. 

And of course direct goals from long balls and crosses into the box. We got so much stick for our style under Sam, but it was genuinely exciting to watch. I love watching clips of our goals from that era. 

I wouldn’t want to see any style completely dominate as I think it would be boring. It’s the constantly changing nature of football that makes it the best sport in the world.

VAR is the biggest threat to the game & has done the most damage imo. 

As much as everyone loves well worked goals the joy of winger crossing it in to the head of a big #9 to bury in the back of the net is up their as the best in footy.

9 minutes ago, London Wanderer said:

Some incredible goals are scored from playing out from the back & through a press. 
 

Can’t beat intricate moves in the opponents final 3rd either. 

And of course direct goals from long balls and crosses into the box. We got so much stick for our style under Sam, but it was genuinely exciting to watch. I love watching clips of our goals from that era. 

I wouldn’t want to see any style completely dominate as I think it would be boring. It’s the constantly changing nature of football that makes it the best sport in the world.

VAR is the biggest threat to the game & has done the most damage imo. 

Imagine var pulling back that winner at Huddersfield for some bollocks in the build up 🤦‍♂️😫

34 minutes ago, London Wanderer said:

 We got so much stick for our style under Sam, 

Only off the likes of wenger, benitez and souness when we'd beaten them

39 minutes ago, Zico said:

We weren't long ball under Sam

Direct yes 

We had a target man in Davies

But we had some great talent who weren't long ball merchants

We weren't 90s Wimbledon 

 

The season we got promoted and in his last couple of seasons we were pretty ugly. Especially away from home. 

6 hours ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

That's what I said.

He should look closer to home, rather than the opposition. 

Both teams could, and should have scored more.

Maybe Salah wants offloading to Saudi ASAP while they can get dosh.

Mad that only 3-4 weeks ago pundits were saying he’s a shoe-in for Ballon D’or

34 minutes ago, gonzo said:

Imagine var pulling back that winner at Huddersfield for some bollocks in the build up 🤦‍♂️😫

Aye

Imagine being too scared to properly let yourself go in the moment because you knew it might be. 

 Hands down the best thing about football, something money can’t buy, goals like that. Memories that last a fckn lifetime. Now changed forever by VAR.

 Maybe I’m being overly dramatic, but I hate what it’s done

25 minutes ago, London Wanderer said:

Aye

Imagine being too scared to properly let yourself go in the moment because you knew it might be. 

 Hands down the best thing about football, something money can’t buy, goals like that. Memories that last a fckn lifetime. Now changed forever by VAR.

 Maybe I’m being overly dramatic, but I hate what it’s done

All good points but when you see United crushed by a VAR decision it's nigh on orgasmic.

2 hours ago, frank_spencer said:

As much as everyone loves well worked goals the joy of winger crossing it in to the head of a big #9 to bury in the back of the net is up their as the best in footy.

Actually a little fast winger being played in down the middle in the 96th minute to score a winner is above and beyond that 👍😎😂🕺

2 hours ago, gonzo said:

Imagine var pulling back that winner at Huddersfield for some bollocks in the build up 🤦‍♂️😫

I still think the keeper has deflected it wide. 

3 hours ago, Zico said:

We weren't long ball under Sam

Direct yes 

We had a target man in Davies

But we had some great talent who weren't long ball merchants

We weren't 90s Wimbledon 

 

Aye, we didn’t sign Jay-Jay and Djorkaeff just to twat it over their heads! Their cross pitch 1-2 still gets me moist 

3 hours ago, London Wanderer said:

Some incredible goals are scored from playing out from the back & through a press. 
 

Can’t beat intricate moves in the opponents final 3rd either. 

And of course direct goals from long balls and crosses into the box. We got so much stick for our style under Sam, but it was genuinely exciting to watch. I love watching clips of our goals from that era. 

I wouldn’t want to see any style completely dominate as I think it would be boring. It’s the constantly changing nature of football that makes it the best sport in the world.

VAR is the biggest threat to the game & has done the most damage imo. 

I was at Turf Moor on Saturday, convinced Burnley’s second was goal of the season; great strike… then Villa pull their winner out of the bag: the volleyed ‘long ball’ with a bit of swazz, touch back and boom! So many aspects to appreciate

5 hours ago, gonzo said:

Every 15 year old round here are all sporting either ket-wigs or scouse trims.

Big floppy fringes or a pot noodle plopped on top.

15 year olds in LH 😂 all natural… stumpy little cunt 

7 hours ago, Ani said:

Bit like beards and excessive tattoos it is a fashion that has gone out of date. 

OK Trinny and Susannah 

 

 

Shove your tippy tappy bollocks.

 

I'm fine with managers mixing things up and playing however they want. What is bollocks is the idea that one style of play is inherently more entertaining or 'better' than the others.

We were absolutely turgid to watch under Evatt more often than not. It's weird how managers get a reputation one way or the other (progressive forward thinker or pre-historic anti-football merchant) and it never changes.

1 hour ago, Tombwfc said:

I'm fine with managers mixing things up and playing however they want. What is bollocks is the idea that one style of play is inherently more entertaining or 'better' than the others.

We were absolutely turgid to watch under Evatt more often than not. It's weird how managers get a reputation one way or the other (progressive forward thinker or pre-historic anti-football merchant) and it never changes.

A relatively modern day 'project' and 'philosophy' phenomenon, exacerbated by the sheer extent of opportunities to debate these things, though Sam's long ball label was from 20 years ago, time flies. 

Arguably, the most successful avoid being labelled. I wonder what Fergie would have been identified as, if anyone could have pinned it down

8 hours ago, Tombwfc said:

We were absolutely turgid to watch under Evatt more often than not

While I respect that some of this will be subjective opinion, I would argue that this is wrong.

Yes there was some turgid stuff, more so in the last 6 months.

But I think that’s forgetting a large part of what went on prior to that.

I think the current trend is to bang the drum that the majority of our possession based football was rubbish.

This would be my longest post ever (and that’s some going for me, before someone else says it 😊) if I was to reminisce over some of the great experiences I had watching Evatt’s Bolton from that first live game after Covid and first away trip to Wimbledon to some great away days and home wins over the following 3 seasons, often watching us play entertaining and winning Football.

I think this gets forgotten or downplayed because of how it ended. 

Yes it takes some loyalty, money, backbone and stupidity to follow your team home and away - but there’s no way I would have sustained that, had the football been “turgid more often than not” 

 

Edited October 22, 2025Oct 22 by desperado

Well I was convinced we'd get promoted under him and his football

And it certainly wasn't Parkinson football

But he turned out to be a massive prick and we didn't get promoted 

It was still decent more often then not 

Just not when it really mattered 

7 hours ago, Zico said:

Well I was convinced we'd get promoted under him and his football

And it certainly wasn't Parkinson football

But he turned out to be a massive prick and we didn't get promoted 

It was still decent more often then not 

Just not when it really mattered 

Good summary.

There’s a big difference between acknowledging his questionable character, his lack of flexibility, his stubbornness and how he fell off a cliff post Oxford….…

..compared to dismissing the majority of our games being “turgid more often than not”

 

10 hours ago, desperado said:

While I respect that some of this will be subjective opinion, I would argue that this is wrong.

Yes there was some turgid stuff, more so in the last 6 months.

But I think that’s forgetting a large part of what went on prior to that.

I think the current trend is to bang the drum that the majority of our possession based football was rubbish.

This would be my longest post ever (and that’s some going for me, before someone else says it 😊) if I was to reminisce over some of the great experiences I had watching Evatt’s Bolton from that first live game after Covid and first away trip to Wimbledon to some great away days and home wins over the following 3 seasons, often watching us play entertaining and winning Football.

I think this gets forgotten or downplayed because of how it ended. 

Yes it takes some loyalty, money, backbone and stupidity to follow your team home and away - but there’s no way I would have sustained that, had the football been “turgid more often than not” 

 

 

I should've added 'towards the latter part if his tenure' to be fair. It certainly wasn't all bad, in fact a lot of it was pretty good.

But the point stands I think, managers who can start with a reputation of 'playing the right way' sustain that even when their teams are playing very dull football. And the reverse is also true.

Having said that, without making this all about Evatt, here's where we ranked on goals scored in the league every season he was here.

20/21 (L2) - 8th

21/22 (L1) - 6th

22/23 (L1) - 9th

23/24 (L1) - 2nd

24/25 (L1) - 7th (at the point he was sacked)

For a team that was chasing promotion in all of those seasons, we were never as good to watch as we arguably should've been.

Tippy-Tappy was not in evidence in last night's European Cup games.

How refreshing is that !?

Edited October 23, 2025Oct 23 by Dr. Feelgood

Just saw this pop up on my feed.

As good a place as any to post it seeing as it was in the midst of our tippy-tappy era - although admittedly this seemed to be in direct contrast to tippy-tappy and if we’d played more often like we did in this 2nd half, we may well be in the Championship now!

But a very good Evatt Bolton day. 

Seems bonkers to say this - but I celebrated this goal as much as I did Nolan’s/Rickets Old Trafford winning goals!