1 hour ago, burnden said:

Bolton have conceded 68 league goals this season, recorded as

34 - open play

5 - counter attcak

22 - set piece

7 - penalties

0 - own goals

 

22 set piece goals conceded is the 2nd highest in L1.

Without looking back… I was stood right in the corner; I’m a coach, former keeper and my lad plays in net for a premier league team (😎)… we could see the wall wasn’t checked or lined up; it was prime for a left footer to take something off it and drop in the corner. 

It’s fundamental- cover the near post, put the bastard you hate in that part of the wall- bollock them if they move. Don’t get beat like that

14 minutes ago, worthy10 said:

I've gradually come to the opinion that sheehan is overrated. Physically weak and is quite easy to neutralise. He has his moments when teams back off and let him play. He rarely gets forward and given our cm, he is down the pecking order. He can't compete with his equivalent type of player in top 6 of div 1. 

Strange post given the day and Sheenan wasn't in the squad.

Matete's stats stack up quite when you have a look.

I'm not a massive fan of them, but they perhaps show he's not been as bad as some suggest. Or that all haven’t been great.

As for numbers; that's up to the manager to decide how many of each is required.

Fwiw, you needn't worry, SS won't be signing him, and it wouldn't surprise me if he already has a club lined up. He's out of contract at Sunderland iirc.

1 minute ago, waffer cup 07 said:

Strange post given the day and Sheenan wasn't in the squad.

Valid nonetheless. 

Given we have him, Morley and Randall, all of a similar style, I wonder if SS will look to change the balance somewhat. 

Sheehan is the oldest, and has the least time left on his contract.

We'll see in the coming weeks.

2 hours ago, burnden said:

Manager  just said on radio manc  its a bigger job than he thought and he doesn't know how to get rid of so many players on long contracts

We could have told him that before he came.  That bit was easy, knowing how many are on long contracts and that they aren't good enough (he must have watched videos of games to have seen for himself?). 

I've got every confidence in him long term but he surely knew what he was coming into, nothing's changed other than in fairness he's been unlucky with injuries.

Anyone fancies a sniff at the manager he will be off.

 

3 minutes ago, waffer cup 07 said:

Strange post given the day and Sheenan wasn't in the squad.

Not really, he's still a Bolton player. He's also backed out of at least a couple of tackles that have lead to goals recently too. Don't know when his contracted to but for us to improve we need to recruit a better version of a Sheehan.

16 minutes ago, Johnnyrotten said:

He can still take criticism for basic defensive (dis)organisation.  Like the 11 back and not marking the players on the edge of the box, we could sign 11 fantastic players and that tactic will still get criticism for folk like me with no coaching badges. 

Agree with that, had little reason to take issue with anything SS has said and done to date, but the dropping of Southwood and some of how we've set up to defend set pieces have been questionable. 

Abimbola wouldn't have given that pen away if he'd been deployed five yards further out, to get the block in sooner

One of the only benefits in having such a lop sided squad is that we can sell players and still have 2/3 capable of doing the same job. And there's not much between any of them quality wise.

Can't sell Sheehan, shift Morley. Can't shift McAtee or Randall, then Collins can go.

Matete has been good in places, but with how badly the squad needs a shake-up we shouldn't be keeping those we can easily get shot of. I'm sure we can do better.

4 minutes ago, gonzo said:

Anyone fancies a sniff at the manager he will be off.

You seem convinced Schumacher is going to make a shock early exit. Have you heard something?

3 hours ago, ianofcleveleys said:

It may well take at least two windows, SS has the double whammy to deal with of this season's disastrous recruitment with the lengths of contracts others are on. 

More like2 seasons 

Just now, Cheese said:

You seem convinced Schumacher is going to make a shock early exit. Have you heard something?

I sensed someone post match who was glad it was over today and, as he said, wants to get cracking sharpish on working towards next season. He won't go anywhere till he's enhanced his reputation by turning us from serial failures into promotion winners

Just now, Cheese said:

You seem convinced Schumacher is going to make a shock early exit. Have you heard something?

I know he's not happy in anyway shape or form and will be asking for big dosh to sort this out. 

Just wouldn't be surprised if he ended up at loggerheads and other clubs will be looking on...

2 hours ago, Leyther_Matt said:

 

That was honestly worse than the 5-1 at Lincoln under Hill. 

In terms of putting up a fight, it was.  We were only 2-1 down till 5 minutes from the end in that game, conceded 3 towards the end.  We had kids Edwards, Zouma, Politic & Darcy starting.  But relative physicality up front with Murphy and Dodoo, and O'Grady came on.  Those 3 would walk into this team (if I was picking it).

22 minutes ago, Tonge moor green jacket said:

Valid nonetheless. 

Given we have him, Morley and Randall, all of a similar style, I wonder if SS will look to change the balance somewhat. 

Sheehan is the oldest, and has the least time left on his contract.

We'll see in the coming weeks.

I'd not say Randall is similar in any way to either Sheehan or Morley.

Although SS'll no doubt be frustrated by, as he indicated post match, the lack of wriggle room with too many on too long contracts, even if he just replaces those out of contract or returning he'll be able to bring a keeper and three new defenders in, a midfielder and a striker. A loan out here and there, maybe likes of Lolos and Sharples-Ahmed, and he's up to 8 new faces. 

That's not bad for starters, gets trickier then for sure, with Nlundulu, CMG, Vic all still having a year to run, along with Tutu and Dempsey, both of whom are seriously injury prone, but if he can move even one or two of those out we're into a double figures turnover. It ought to be enough to reshape things to something like the scale he feels he needs.

3 minutes ago, DazBob said:

I'd not say Randall is similar in any way to either Sheehan or Morley.

Absolutely not 

Randall needs to be playing behind a front 2. He was excellent for Peterborough, he's just hasn't been used right since he's been here. 

1 minute ago, L/H White said:

Absolutely not 

Randall needs to be playing behind a front 2. He was excellent for Peterborough, he's just hasn't been used right since he's been here. 

They were hardly distraught that he left.  

Play off hotel was cancelled at 4.30pm, the bunch of wankers.

How we were level at half time was a mystery, that first 30 minutes genuinely looked like we’d had an illness through the team the night before and we had to play a combination of kids and half fit pros. I know we’ve got some injuries but it was embarrassing how poor we were.

We then managed to get ourselves back in it by some miracle, you’d think that would see us come out bang up for it in the second half but once again we were just weak as piss and looked like a team fighting for relegation.

Let’s be honest, it was just another example of all the issues we know this squad / team has. Nothing is surprising now, we’re well versed in it all, it’s just frustrating to see it all happen once again.

That 3rd goal summed it up for me. Poor defending down the left, Cogley then gets back in position and actually does well to win the ball back, he then misplaces a 3 yard pass and tees their lad up for the cross, we don’t get out to it with any kind of urgency so it’s a piece of piss for him to put a good ball in, Johnston gets beat in the air by an old school centre forward who knows this league well.

We’re complaining it’s a foul and we’ve been hard done by but it’s just part of being in league one, it’s weak, sometimes you don’t get them cause refs are shit, but don’t get yourself in that position in the first place, don’t get bullied, and if you do have a bit of intelligence to make a fucking meal of it, other players should be round the ref, make it hard for him not to rule it out. Instead we just fucking sulked and felt sorry for ourselves whilst Collins is off pissing himself at how easy it was to bully our centre half.

More than anything we need to fill this team / squad with pace, power, height, physicality and leadership. It seems to be accepted that this squad has ‘talent’ (I’m not sure, I think we’re full of very average footballers), but without the above we will continue to be a league one football team. Thankfully it’s clear that SS knows exactly that.

No chance I’m watching any more of us now. Season is done. Golf course awaits and I’ll start taking notice when I see that we start shipping out some of the shit bastards in the summer. What a shit shit season (other than finally beating Wigan).

Here‘s to winning the league next season with a team of giants!

1 hour ago, Tombwfc said:

I'm not sure you can say we're not far off if the general consensus is that we need a top centre half, top midfielder and an all-around striker who can bang 15 goals in. Give those to any team from Wigan upwards and it'd get them in the playoffs next year.

That's true.  We're saying "just" bring these players in, but that's what everyone is trying to do, and no doubt most if not all other teams will have more opportunity to bring in new players through having less that are tied to long/expensive contracts.  

And these 3 or 4 new players, great if we can get them, but are they going to start 46 league games?  Course not, they'll get short or longer term injuries, they'll lose form or get suspensions like the vast majority of our squad, so on a match to match basis we're probably only going to have 2 or 3 new players, at least upto January.  SS really has to get more out of the current under performing players for at least first half of next season, and part of that will be not burning bridges by calling them out in public for being not good enough.

A new Centre back. Midfielder, wingback and striker/s made of scrap yard dog material, please.

 

Just seen that fourth goal. Fuck me that's the worst giveaway I've ever seen. Ever.

22 minutes ago, gonzo said:

I know he's not happy in anyway shape or form and will be asking for big dosh to sort this out. 

Just wouldn't be surprised if he ended up at loggerheads and other clubs will be looking on...

The backing of IE in the last two windows has caused all sorts of issues and cost a lot of money

And now they're going to have to go again this summer 

Might be time to convince the swiss lot to stump up now rather than waiting for us to get to the championship 

1 hour ago, Blondi said:

Hopefully with Etete, Matete, Coleman, Cogley, Santos, Murphy, Jones, and Baxter presumably gone at the end of the season, this should free up some money for SS to bring in some players that can take us forward.

Cogley's under contract (I've no problem with him being at least part of the squad if not always 1st 11).

I'm hoping Matete is back with us in August, there's a good chance we'll be even weaker without him.

1 minute ago, Zico said:

The backing of IE in the last two windows has caused all sorts of issues and cost a lot of money

And now they're going to have to go again this summer 

Might be time to convince the swiss lot to stump up now rather than waiting for us to get to the championship 

Giving him the January window was fucking insanity.