Another team that are having a fruit salad season - proper mixed bag of results although their surprise loss to Plymouth on Tuesday brought a 12 game unbeaten run to an end - a run that included a lot of draws so they are mid table.
Another conundrum for SS to solve. I think Duff sets them up to be a “hard to beat” team, usually 4231, rather than an attacking force although they are strong on the right with Jack Grimmer at the back and the dangerous Fred Onyedinma ahead of him.

 

29 minutes ago, Ani said:

Only watched on telly yesterday and do not want to read back through thread before adding my points.

It was as an awful result and performance having gone a goal up We just looked vulnerable everytime they came forward

For first 20 minutes looked really good with cross field balls getting us into good positions. Duff dropped a player deeper and cut that ball out and we were lost. 
 

Once again the midfield dropped deep so we have 4 at the back, plus the keeper and 2 midfield players also deep, so 7 out of 11 almost in a line across the back. 
 

it is no wonder the 9 and 10 struggle as they get so little support. This is the system SS sticks with.

A lot of talk about what we need in Jan, honestly not sure but still think we lack the captain/leader for days like yesterday to push us forward. 
 

I know Sheehan gave the ball away for the first goal but taking him off meant we had even less guile for last 25 minutes. 

There are still a few bits of us that aren't quite as advertised by SS over Summer and where we're not the finished article yet. I agree we haven't really added the nouse and guile we needed, Christie's helped to a degree but we still look at times a young side that isnt robust and streetwise enough

The impression I also got (maybe wrongly) was that we'd have robust, physical wide players who got down the wings and fired balls in to the bloke who plies his trade between the posts. We're largely the opposite and our wide players don't do enough to help in front of full backs who aren't full backs in a 4.

Having said all of that, we're not talking about it when we're halfway down the league and miles off it, a glass half full view would say just a few tweaks, if SS sees they need making, and we're top 6 at least, top 2 at best

3 hours ago, masi 51 said:

They only paid fees for Gale600k Simons 300k and Erhahon 700k Total 1.6m  Everyone else was brought in free or on loan

Outgoings Thomason 1.2m Collins 800k  Giving a net spend of -400k

Gale and EE were less, XS more; Collins went for less. Net spend closer to ~600k

And of course, these are all in instalments because no-one below the PL pays transfer fees upfront. 

So when people say "sell/loan X and Y", yeah, makes great (financial) sense to pay an instalment on a player just to loan them out so they can do well for another club in the division, doesn't it?

Edited December 21, 2025Dec 21 by jmjhb

13 hours ago, desperado said:

I don’t think there is.

We won’t get to find out what SS’s true thoughts and feedback to the squad will be. But my guess would be airy complacency will be the last thing on the menu.

If you mean fans on here - there’s very few accepting that we can keep doing this and expect to go up.

All I can see that from most of the folk who aren’t writing off our promotion credentials yet are some facts about us still very much being in contention because of what’s happening in and around us in this inconsistent league.

We need to get better consistency away from home to have any chance of getting in the top two. Anyone who disagrees with that is very blinkered.

It’s subjective as to whether people think we will from here on in. 

Not to look too far ahead (let's get these 4 games won hopefully and things will look a lot better) but in terms of getting the away form improved, we are probably referring to the routine aways at the Northamptons, Wycombes and Burtons.  But also the make or break away games are all to come, results that may well define our season's prospects.  We have still to go to all of the top 4, losing all 4 isn't an option if we want to catch 3 of them up.  We don't just have to improve a bit, we have to improve a lot.

Of the other 9 aways, 2 look "relatively easy" - Doncaster and Port Vale - and the other 7 look like banana skins on our current form: Wimbledon, Wigan, Reading, Posh, Plymouth, Rotherham, Exeter. 

i see alot of our problems are in midfield for me,not much diiferent from when evatt was here, when sheehan plays hes our best passer of a ball, but he drops far to deep to pick the ball up leaving only 1 in midfield,thus the no10 dropping deeper and leaving our strikers isolated.

away from home we should play 4321, instead of 2 wingers play to no10's more so if dalby plays.

4 hours ago, desperado said:

But he’s a lunatic who runs an asylum.

I don’t think folk on here are too interested in what he has to say and don’t want this place to turn into the unintelligent, over-reactionary cesspit that that has become.

Dion has struggled at Huddersfield and Collins only yesterday started showing anything like some goal-scoring form - And that’s in L2!

And do we really want to give any credence that the board aren’t serious about us getting up?

This isn’t a post about stifling debate after a defeat, more about keeping a context and not falling into clickbait, over-reactionary stuff that talks about EVERYTHING being wrong and that drastic change is required.

And that shit gets repeated on a daily basis! 

If that repeated, regurgitated doom-glooming nonsense takes over here, people will stop reading and posting if that’s the route we take.

 

Good points, agree with the gist of that.

On Collins, "only yesterday started to show goalscoring form" - that was virtually his first league start!  Injured and then on the bench until yesterday.  But to be clear I'm not saying he should still be here, just that we haven't replaced his goals.  The same is true of Charles, it was right for him to leave, but we now have that gap to fill and the hope for me was that Dalby would do that (with a very different style) but that's 100% not happening.

BTW I know Collins is only in L2, but that strikeforce MKD is ridiculous for that level, no wonder he can't get a start - two from the championship (Mendez-Laing and Patterson) and probably the best striker I saw in L1 last season (Hepburn-Murphy).  

5 hours ago, Wanderlust said:

Some criticism directed at the Board’s lack of ambition from Craig Barnes on FB along these lines:
 

* they sold two proven goal scorers in Collins and Charles, pocketed a load of money and replaced them with two loanees and a freebie (Burstow, Forss and Dalby)

* they didn’t spend all the money they got for Thommo on replacements 

* if they are serious about getting us promoted, they need to spend big now

For comparison,

Dion scored 45 goals in 122 appearances and Collins scored 20 in 64 

Will be a dark day when I take notice of anything said on that cesspit hole of the the Internet.

That Racist, greasy haired, self important, leaflet delivering nonce and his gaggle of arse licking lemmings can fuck right off and fuck right off some more.

The guy thinks he's running some kind of supporters club and is some all seeing eye and voice for the fans.

He's fucking not and neither are any whoppers that post and engage with reactionary and hysterical bullshit on a daily basis.

 

 

14 hours ago, desperado said:

I don’t think there is.

We won’t get to find out what SS’s true thoughts and feedback to the squad will be. But my guess would be airy complacency will be the last thing on the menu.

If you mean fans on here - there’s very few accepting that we can keep doing this and expect to go up.

All I can see that from most of the folk who aren’t writing off our promotion credentials yet are some facts about us still very much being in contention because of what’s happening in and around us in this inconsistent league.

We need to get better consistency away from home to have any chance of getting in the top two. Anyone who disagrees with that is very blinkered.

It’s subjective as to whether people think we will from here on in. 

 

Aware that Bolton fans are not a hive mind, but there definitely seems to be a prevailing sense on here that the teams around us are all shit and will stay shit. And so as long as we eventually get around to winning a few games at some point we'll glide past them. People are still writing off Stevenage and Lincoln as being teams we don't even need to bother ourselves considering, and yet it's mid-December and there they are above us.

History will tell you that, whatever anybody is doing now, at least two teams will get up to or exceed 90 points. That can definitely be us, but we've had two entire years of talking about how any minute now we're going to go on a decisive title/promotion winning run and it hasn't materialised. The attitude needs to be that every game we don't win is a bad result.

8 minutes ago, Tombwfc said:

 

Aware that Bolton fans are not a hive mind, but there definitely seems to be a prevailing sense on here that the teams around us are all shit and will stay shit. And so as long as we eventually get around to winning a few games at some point we'll glide past them. People are still writing off Stevenage and Lincoln as being teams we don't even need to bother ourselves considering, and yet it's mid-December and there they are above us.

History will tell you that, whatever anybody is doing now, at least two teams will get up to or exceed 90 points. That can definitely be us, but we've had two entire years of talking about how any minute now we're going to go on a decisive title/promotion winning run and it hasn't materialised. The attitude needs to be that every game we don't win is a bad result.

Aye it's all balance isn't it. Everything always gets polarised online. 

I said Forss needs to create more the other day and that ended up me hating the guy and hounding him out the club

Think most rational folk understand things are far from perfect. We drastically need to improve the away form if we are going to make the autos. 

We'd have to implode and things go very wrong to not make the play offs.

We certainly don't feel like a team that did jobs on us in times past like Plymouth. We just don't have that killer instinct, especially a way from home.

But even with results like yesterday we won't be far off at least a punchers chance come May.

4 hours ago, Lostock Whites said:

We're not a very lucky team as well although I appreciate you make your own luck and I don't want that to excuse our bad away form.

But just remembering the Simons shot, that goes in for them, off the post and then the keeper who had no idea but safely in his hands.

It feels like we have to score high quality goals almost all the time and after extensive periods of "being the much better side", whereas for the opposition, they score from virtually nothing or a mistake from us (ie Gale slipping & Sharman Lowes howler last week).

And then there's the lack of luck/support from the officials. We are 20 games in and not had a single penalty yet. Referees have no idea how to manage time wasting. They gave Exeter 8 minutes last week and gave us just 4 yesterday.

But this shouldn't be the focus, we have to set up away from home to be more solid. Even more so after going a goal up. I don't mean 11 men behind the ball, but you can't excuse leading 1-0 away at Wycombe 40th minute and then losing 2-1 at half time.

I agree some of the goals we concede are where the opposition just need to get the ball once and its a goal - Reading, Lincoln, Blackpool, Northampton, Burton especially (Exeter too but entirely our fault).  But we've had other bits of luck going our way - 3 sendings off against us with around half the game to go, where they were basically down to the oppo having a brain freeze rather than it being anything we "earned".  7 points from those 3 that may not have been 7 without that luck.  We've had 1 iffy sending off, with 20 minutes left, we may have held on at Luton who knows.  On penalties, have we been denied any?  The Burton,  Northampton, Swindon one's against us were nailed on errors by us, I'm struggling to recall any by the opposition but may have forgotten them. 

5 hours ago, L/H White said:

we had the least shots on target in the league yesterday (1) 

this has happened many times and stretches back into the evatt era 

we really need to be more ambitious / clinical with the ball in the final 3rd 

it's tiresome watching it

Whilst nobody can disagree that we need to be more clinical, the shots on target stat can be misleading.  If you smack the bar or post, its a shot off target.  If you pass one to the keeper in the centre of his goal from 25 yards, its a shot on target.

If you get to the corner of the 6 yard box, roll it across the goal and 2 strikers are sliding in to tap it home but can't get a touch, it isn't a shot, never mind an on target one.

Saying that, the "near goals" in L1 games this season involving Bolton has to be as low as ever, the keepers of both sides hardly join in most games, I've never known a season like it for lack of decent efforts, from both sides.  

Edited December 21, 2025Dec 21 by Johnnyrotten

11 minutes ago, Tombwfc said:

 

Aware that Bolton fans are not a hive mind, but there definitely seems to be a prevailing sense on here that the teams around us are all shit and will stay shit. And so as long as we eventually get around to winning a few games at some point we'll glide past them. People are still writing off Stevenage and Lincoln as being teams we don't even need to bother ourselves considering, and yet it's mid-December and there they are above us.

History will tell you that, whatever anybody is doing now, at least two teams will get up to or exceed 90 points. That can definitely be us, but we've had two entire years of talking about how any minute now we're going to go on a decisive title/promotion winning run and it hasn't materialised. The attitude needs to be that every game we don't win is a bad result.

I sort of agree with your sentiments on attitude.
I posted the inflammatory comments from Craig Barnes as they were entirely in the prevalent range of discussion, criticism and amateur analysis of individual players, the manager and in Barnes’ case the Board - generally way OTT IMO - that followed yesterday’s defeat. What is clear is that everyone cares deeply, even though I disagree with much of the so-called analysis.

For me it’s simple. We were up against a very strong team with an astute manager and we needed to be on it to get something from the game - and I made that point early in the thread. There are a lot of strong teams with astute managers in this league this season as results elsewhere have proven so nothing can be taken for granted - sure a lot of those strong teams dont have players with the flair and style of ours, but they have different qualities - strength, character, focus, teamwork, athleticism, players with a cannon in their boots etc etc which can grind out results on any given day. All should be respected and never taken for granted and every fan should realise that none of them are going to lie down for us.
 

We could easily have won yesterday if we’d been more clinical in front of goal and if we’d been fully focused for the whole 90 minutes - but we failed to capitalise on our early dominance and held just a one goal lead, switched off for their equaliser, didn’t react in the right way to that and conceded another and finally didn’t have enough attacking prowess to get back into it.

So if there is any analysis to be had, for me it’s comes down to:

Due respect for the opposition 

100% focus/concentration in every second of the game, regardless of the game situation/opposition

Clinical finishing when we get clear chances

More variety/less predictability in attacking options/strategy (I think we can improve on shooting power, movement and ruthlessness to mix it up a bit)

Schumacher has said that he’ll have to ship out players to bring in new blood but rather than seeing wholesale change in January I’d like to see maybe one or two key additions but mainly a lot more work with the players we have on the elements above. Conway for example seems to have a problem with focus, a few struggle with getting decent shots off from distance and close finishing and there’s positional work to consider.

We are pretty much where I’d expect us to be so things could be worse.
 

1 hour ago, Johnnyrotten said:

Whilst nobody can disagree that we need to be more clinical, the shots on target stat can be misleading.  If you smack the bar or post, its a shot off target.  If you pass one to the keeper in the centre of his goal from 25 yards, its a shot on target.

In any case, it's been a theme this season

1 out of 15 on target

They had 3 out of 9 and two went in

Away from home we don't score enough and we concede easily

57 minutes ago, Zico said:

In any case, it's been a theme this season

1 out of 15 on target

They had 3 out of 9 and two went in

Away from home we don't score enough and we concede easily

The ratio of goals to shots in anger from the opposition continues to be bizarre.  I've mentioned it before but the saves that are made in the Prem are like its a different game.  Allison made 3 saves after the 95th minute against Spurs yesterday (who had 9 men), I'd guess about the same as our keeper has made in any bunch of 2 or 3 games from any part of the season.

5 hours ago, gonzo said:

Why the hell do we have to start bringing up ex players and manager after every defeat.

As bad as the wife bringing up shit from the past every time she's had a drink.

Oh yes, I wondered how long it would be before you brought that up.

Away from home at these tight grounds I think he has to go three at the back we have the players to do that and then he can bring Duberry on in second half when they tire.  It’s ok playing wingers at a big pitch away like Huddersfield Rotherham and maybe Doncaster but against Burton Northampton there is no space 

27 minutes ago, Chrisj said:

Away from home at these tight grounds I think he has to go three at the back we have the players to do that and then he can bring Duberry on in second half when they tire.  It’s ok playing wingers at a big pitch away like Huddersfield Rotherham and maybe Doncaster but against Burton Northampton there is no space 

Hard no from me. Switching between a back 4 and a back 3 is such a significant change to do regularly. I'd rather see a more solid midfield 3 tried more regularly away - Erhahon, Simons and either Dempsey or Sheehan (Morley also but he's out of form) and a more workmanlike winger like Forss to start for either Gale or ACD

1 hour ago, FrancisFogarty said:

Oh yes, I wondered how long it would be before you brought that up.

If you're not happy here why don't you just fuck off and live with Craig Barnes.

26 minutes ago, Stig said:

Hard no from me. Switching between a back 4 and a back 3 is such a significant change to do regularly. I'd rather see a more solid midfield 3 tried more regularly away - Erhahon, Simons and either Dempsey or Sheehan (Morley also but he's out of form) and a more workmanlike winger like Forss to start for either Gale or ACD

Forss isn't a winger though.  And no-one works harder than ACD to win the ball back etc.

The opposition would be pleased if we made that switch, I'm not saying Forss shouldn't play or that we shouldn't play with one winger rather than two, but it has to be round pegs in round holes so he plays as a 2nd striker or not at all for me.

1 hour ago, Chrisj said:

Away from home at these tight grounds I think he has to go three at the back we have the players to do that and then he can bring Duberry on in second half when they tire.  It’s ok playing wingers at a big pitch away like Huddersfield Rotherham and maybe Doncaster but against Burton Northampton there is no space 

How do we know who's pitches are bigger than others?  I wonder if clubs have to declare their pitch sizes before the season starts or if they can keep that info to themselves to gain a bit of home advantage.

1 hour ago, gonzo said:

If you're not happy here why don't you just fuck off and live with Craig Barnes.

is that what you say to your missus ? That was my ( obviously poor) attempt at continuing your comment about her bringing things up ages after.

Who's Craig Barnes anyway ?

The thing about playing 4231, is that it's down to the team to train/ recognise that the wingers are being marked in a way which makes them ineffective, so the players change who they're passing to, the focal point of the passes change and the nexus of attack changes with them. This then free's up the wingers who the team can then pass to again in space. 

I'm not joking right now when i say it's like we're playing 422, Dalby aint scoring because there is no delivery, Burstow is dropping too deep because he doesn't get the ball if he doesn't and the no 10 is being totally bypassed. The entire team seems set up with this instruction "everything goes to the wingers, no matter what".

 

 

2 minutes ago, FrancisFogarty said:

is that what you say to your missus ? That was my ( obviously poor) attempt at continuing your comment about her bringing things up ages after.

Who's Craig Barnes anyway ?

And that was mine to you

 

2 minutes ago, gonzo said:

And that was mine to you

 

Doh.

11 hours ago, Johnnyrotten said:

Forss isn't a winger though.  And no-one works harder than ACD to win the ball back etc.

The opposition would be pleased if we made that switch, I'm not saying Forss shouldn't play or that we shouldn't play with one winger rather than two, but it has to be round pegs in round holes so he plays as a 2nd striker or not at all for me.

In a 433 you often have players who aren't wingers as part of the attacking 3, because you want them joining the midfield, playing inside etc. Look at Man City with Foden. MOTD have even started showing the formation as 4321 to show they aren't wingers in the same way, as if there is something revolutionary about it when Allardyce was doing this with Nolan 20 years ago.

Forss or Dempsey could do that role as one of the notional wide players but told to come infield.

Edited December 22, 2025Dec 22 by Stig

55 minutes ago, Stig said:

In a 433 you often have players who aren't wingers as part of the attacking 3, because you want them joining the midfield, playing inside etc. Look at Man City with Foden. MOTD have even started showing the formation as 4321 to show they aren't wingers in the same way, as if there is something revolutionary about it when Allardyce was doing this with Nolan 20 years ago.

Forss or Dempsey could do that role as one of the national wide players but told to come infield.

Was only thinking that this morning, how under Sam we were 433 but effectively 451 without the ball. Stelios and Diouf were highly effective as wide forwards but also enough of a nuisance in front of their full backs. A solid set up that served us well