Who wants to guess the starting xi !!

5 up top from the start 

1 minute ago, ianofcleveleys said:

We are at least where I expected / hoped we might be in the table at this stage, again pretty creditable. My only issue is that, despite more additions and turnover to the squad in Summer, we still look what we were last season and I'm not seeing that bit evolution that's going to be necessary to take us from being 8th or 9th best to contenders.

We're 6th during a bad run of form.

1st season - Barrow from relegation strugglers to mid table

2nd season - Barrow promoted to the league

3rd season - Bolton promoted to League 1

4th season - Bolton finish 9th in the first season back in L1

5th season - Bolton 6th in the league

I’ve always said that there will be short term lean patches and bumps in the road. We will never just continue to win and win and everything look perfect and win the league with 100+ points - we’re in one of those spells now.

However, he has never failed, he has only ever progressed over a longer term view than just a 5/6 game period. I’m as critical of the last month as anyone, I think he’s got plenty wrong, but we’ve got to keep the wider perspective - his record so far is fantastic and I fully believe it will continue. He’ll sort it (as Gonzo has pointed out he has proved every time previously that he can do) and we’ll at least finish in the play offs. 

1 hour ago, Black Sheep said:

surely some of you can see that he was wrong selecting Williams, Lee & Sheehan in midfield

 

36 minutes ago, Black Sheep said:

keep repeating the same 'stubborn' mistakes

See I really disagree with these 2 comments.

Maybe in hindsight we (including Evatt ) can see this didn’t work yesterday. But plenty of team predictions included these 3 or at least combination of a couple of them.

I can’t understand how you could think those 3 prior to to the game were so blatantly and obviously wrong? 

That’s not to say Thomason, Dempsey and Morley would have been wrong, They all, as we can see and IE does,  have something to offer.

The problem is he (and you!) hasn’t found the right combination yet. It looked like he had with MJ/Tomo/Lee, but the wheels came off in Gloucestershire with this one and he’s tried all kinds of combinations since.

Which leads me to the 2nd point. The same mistakes suggests he’s not altering personnel, tactics, subs etc. If anything he’s changed too much! Completely the opposite of making the same mistakes!

And if the point is about formation or Dapo at LWB go back to his detailed interview after Accrington - you/we might not agree but it made sense. He’s maintained some of his philosophies that have served us well, while trying to find the right personnel combinations - granted it’s not worked this month and he acknowledges this.

If he does have to change formations, he’s done it before and now with a break in the league he might chose to do it again.
 

24 minutes ago, Black Sheep said:

What is this ?, I said that I don't like his arrogance it doesn't mean that I don't like him generally as a person, although not so much as a manager - you just pick on a word or a sentence to back up your argument. I actually know who you are & I didn't think you were like this - its bordering on an obsession defending IE, no one can criticise or say anything negative about him without this type of response.

I’ve also criticised his selections on occasions including yesterday… just think there’s a bigger picture that we have to take into consideration, any thoughts of sacking him at the moment is the thought process of a moon man. Come and say hello next time you see me, I’ll even buy you a pint… no hard feelings, just opinions. 
 

PS: it’s a forum for a debate if you don’t like alternative opinions might better saying nowt. 

Edited October 30, 20223 yr by Mounts Kipper

4 minutes ago, Black Sheep said:

What is this ?, I said that I don't like his arrogance it doesn't mean that I don't like him generally as a person, although not so much as a manager - you just pick on a word or a sentence to back up your argument. I actually know who you are & I didn't think you were like this - its bordering on an obsession defending IE, no one can criticise or say anything negative about him without this type of response.

Think you need to cut IE a bit of slack, sure he’s got things wrong but on the whole we are sixth and in general the club has moved forward in the last 2 and a bit years. Surely that’s all we can ask after where we looked to be heading before he arrived. Remember someone posting on here( not sure who) about IE taking the handbrake off , well to a certain extent he did that with the midfield yesterday, it didn’t work I know but he tried something new and think he was right to do it against a team low in confidence.we all don’t know what goes on at the club regarding injuries which maybe affecting team selection, jb has had problems otherwise imo he would be a shoe in , dempsey perhaps can’t manage 2 games a week otherwise he would be centre mid , these are just a couple of examples. Keep the faith.

18 minutes ago, Mounts Kipper said:

PS: it’s a forum for a debate if you don’t like alternative opinions might better saying nowt. 

Aye alright, alternative opinions welcome eh !

2 minutes ago, Black Sheep said:

Aye alright, alternative opinions welcome eh !

Definitely! but as on any forum they can be challenged and an alternative opinion offered. 

1 hour ago, Black Sheep said:

Personality transplant was probably the wrong phrase to use, perhaps a change of mindset would have been better, however IMO he does need to change. To improve as a manager he needs to stop being so stubborn & also thinking that he's the Guardiola of League 1, I admire his self belief but he has an arrogance about him that I don't like, he rarely admits that he's done anything wrong and dismisses most of the criticism against him. It's almost like its his way or no way and he won't listen to anyone who disagrees with him.

Yes he's young & he's learning, but to keep repeating the same 'stubborn' mistakes week after week doesn't strike me like a person who wants to learn & develop more like a person who believes that he already good & knows lwhat he's doing.

Ok but I struggle for a really successful manager who is not pretty arrogant, it goes with the job. Agree he has lots to learn. 

7 minutes ago, Black Sheep said:

Aye alright, alternative opinions welcome eh !

Well yes, think I’ve read every comment on this thread, hard to find 2 that are the same! And theres plenty of debate, disagreement, opinion, nearly 22 pages of it!  Don’t think it’s ever got personal. I’ve respectfully disagreed with quite a few already on here, including you 😊

Edited October 30, 20223 yr by desperado
More waffle than I thought 22 pages!

Just now, desperado said:

Well yes, think I’ve read every comment on this thread, hard to find 2 that are the same! And theres plenty of debate, disagreement, opinion, nearly 20 pages of it!  Don’t think it’s ever got personal. I’ve respectfully disagreed with quite a few already on here, including you 😊

Apart from @radcliffe white threatening to cave my head in at the snooker. 😄

I don't agree with @Mounts Kipper very often, but he's spot on in this thread.

Aye. No need for it to get personal. 

1 hour ago, Cheese said:

We're 6th during a bad run of form.

We are, and might benefit over time from top 2 and Sheff Wed running away with it and rest being much of a muchness, carrying on as we have over this spell of games might still see us in the mix, I'm just not convinced of that at the moment. 

6 hours ago, DazBob said:

Sorry, meant to say plenty good enough to get us out of this division.

Is it?

I would exoect us to make the play offs but after that, its a lottery

Id expect plymouth, pirtsmouth, ipswich. Sheff weds all reckon theyre plenty good enough to go up

1 hour ago, Cheese said:

Do you agree that all 24 clubs in League 1 would like to get promoted to the Championship?

Yes, they'd all love to be champions, and then get promoted again next season to the premiership, then at least stay up if not win it 

This is irrefutable 

2 minutes ago, Zico said:

Yes, they'd all love to be champions, and then get promoted again next season to the premiership, then at least stay up if not win it 

This is irrefutable 

That's all I said. 

33 minutes ago, Cheese said:

Apart from @radcliffe white threatening to cave my head in at the snooker. 😄

I don't agree with @Mounts Kipper very often, but he's spot on in this thread.

It’s all good fun 

1 hour ago, ianofcleveleys said:

Not been on here for a long while (got a bit too engrossed with Twitter) so well out of touch, but I can see both your points of view on this one. Evatt's done really well, with good backing, to get the team back on an upward curve, establish a way of playing that's largely been successful and largely entertained us. He's also, again with that backing, rebuilt playing infrastructure that had been decimated. 

We are at least where I expected / hoped we might be in the table at this stage, again pretty creditable. My only issue is that, despite more additions and turnover to the squad in Summer, we still look what we were last season and I'm not seeing that bit evolution that's going to be necessary to take us from being 8th or 9th best to contenders. We're doing all the same good things but all the same bad things, with a lot of very similar players who have the same qualities and same sort of deficiencies. 

That evolution is going to have to be based on Evatt having a reflective moment and accepting that the best two or three teams in this league can, without doubt, football it around as well as any but also know how to win against whoever rolls up, whether that involves being more direct, outmuscling or out shithousing them. 

If we are to make any further progress under Evatt, and I do hope we do and he enjoys the credit for it, we're going to have to move on from still looking like a latter day Wenger Arsenal, easy on the eye, score lovely goals now and then but a soft touch easily knocked off course and into their shells    

    

Welcome back, good post.  Don't leave it so long next time if that's the standard!  

I think the concern is not that we may have stood still (from a high starting point) but that compared to Feb-April, we've gone backwards, arguably.  We appeared to have cracked routinely beating 90% of teams not in the top 10, we were scoring in virtually every game home and away, we were coming from behind regularly, the strikers were scoring most games, and so were a few midfielders.  The improvement I thought was needed was to start beating the better teams, and to win regularly away at the Burtons, Fleetwoods, Accringtons.  At best we've stayed still on those, but gone backwards on many of the others, statistically.  So far.  We now need to improve to get back to where we were in April, and once we've done that we can re-set and look to go to the next level.

5 minutes ago, Cheese said:

That's all I said. 

As said, am pretty certain it's not the ambition of every club when the season starts  

Some boards, managers, players and fans fairly think this is as good as it gets for them and anything other than staying up is a bonus 

So set out their aims and budgets accordingly  

Wants and expectations are two different things 

Which is where folks frustration comes into play when we go on a shit run 

 

19 minutes ago, Casino said:

Is it?

I would exoect us to make the play offs but after that, its a lottery

Id expect plymouth, pirtsmouth, ipswich. Sheff weds all reckon theyre plenty good enough to go up

Yes, I think so. 

I think our issue is, firstly, not knowing a best XI ... and secondly knowing the best way to play them.

5 minutes ago, Zico said:

As said, am pretty certain it's not the ambition of every club when the season starts  

Some boards, managers, players and fans fairly think this is as good as it gets for them and anything other than staying up is a bonus 

So set out their aims and budgets accordingly  

Wants and expectations are two different things 

Which is where folks frustration comes into play when we go on a shit run 

We're exactly where we should be in terms of budget. "Expectation" is an unmanagable factor.

2 minutes ago, DazBob said:

Yes, I think so. 

I think our issue is, firstly, not knowing a best XI ... and secondly knowing the best way to play them.

So, we are plenty good enough to finish top 2?

Like i say, you will get arguments from fans of a lot of clubs

Hope youre right mind!

I think I'd like to see more of Dempsey & Morley together, Give them a string of games together and I think they've got the tenacity and the passing ability between them for us to then have the likes of Lee, Sheehan, Dapo or Sadlier as the attacking link between midfield and attack.

That said, I'd like Declan John back in the team, we look far stronger when both him & Dapo are down the left, they link so well.

1 hour ago, Johnnyrotten said:

Welcome back, good post.  Don't leave it so long next time if that's the standard!  

I think the concern is not that we may have stood still (from a high starting point) but that compared to Feb-April, we've gone backwards, arguably.  We appeared to have cracked routinely beating 90% of teams not in the top 10, we were scoring in virtually every game home and away, we were coming from behind regularly, the strikers were scoring most games, and so were a few midfielders.  The improvement I thought was needed was to start beating the better teams, and to win regularly away at the Burtons, Fleetwoods, Accringtons.  At best we've stayed still on those, but gone backwards on many of the others, statistically.  So far.  We now need to improve to get back to where we were in April, and once we've done that we can re-set and look to go to the next level.

Thanks, much appreciated. I think the thing for me is how brilliant we were in that first home game v Wycombe, I bounced down the steps going away from that one, really excited at how we'd taken a previously difficult opponent apart. That day we started fast, played quickly and continually got midfield runners beyond their back line. We gave up one or two chances to be sure but we also had 21 shots on goal, scored 3 and nearly scored another 3. That side had Dapo up front with Baka, Morley and Dempsey with MJ in midfield. I can't recall that front pairing featuring again since, similar with Morley / Dempsey around MJ. 

All sorts of factors obviously, over the weeks, why the same side can't be turned out every week, but we could do a lot worse than getting a bit closer to that set up again, and the tempo we played at that day from minute one.  We've been a fair bit off it in last month and also slipped back into the bad habit of giving really poor goals away 

Theres a difference between being firm in your plan and beliefs and downright arrogance.

What do folk want him to do? Come out and say sorry lads I fucked up and the spackers I picked totally cocked the job up?

 

18 minutes ago, ianofcleveleys said:

similar with Morley / Dempsey

It’s a good post with some very valid points.

But in the following 4 league games after Wycombe when Morley and Dempsey were paired together we only won one - so if he had carried on with this and we’d have kept on not winning games, he would have been called stubborn and clueless!

As I mentioned earlier the most successfull 3 so far this season has been MJ/Tomo/Lee - he changed it (I can see why after the hellish Gloucestershire week)

The only real conclusion you can reach as a fan is that no matter which 3 he picks you’ll never get everyone agreeing. And while we are are not winning you’ll always get folk on social media saying he should have done it this or that way with a different set of players than he selected! 

I’d go even further and say even when we win our next game, you’ll have those who say it should stay the same and those who’ll say he should change to suit the opposition!

Until we get on a good run again, I understand that there will be lots of debate and conjecture about who should/shouldn’t be playing. And that’s fine. But I also think there needs to be an understanding that IE and his coaching team will be best placed to get these decisions right (or at least make informed decisions) based on a number of factors, some of which are apparent to us, lots of which behind the scenes isn’t.