Bolton Wanderers

[Jackflash]

Bolton, reported to be struggling financially, with reports of players not being paid, whether that will reflect on their performance today remains to be seen. The form book says we should take the three points, but those points will have now lost a lot of the impact with the fans as they will seem somewhat irrelevant now .

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Swansea City: Kristoffer Nordfeldt; Kyle Naughton, Mike van der Hoorn (captain), Cameron Carter-Vickers, Connor Roberts; George Byers, Matt Grimes; Nathan Dyer, Wayne Routledge, Daniel James; Oli McBurnie.

Subs: Erwin Mulder, Cian Harries, Declan John, Jay Fulton, Barrie McKay, Bersant Celina, Courtney Baker-Richardson.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Dyer and Routs start. Celina to bench. JDR rotating like the 3 Amigos should be a dynamic combination. If everybody else is up to speed I predict a hammering for Bolton.

But, Nordy is in goal .... so we could lose 5-4.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Looks like a game where we own the ball but struggle to be creative around or in the box and Bolton get a sneaky chance and score

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Another shit penalty

 

[Yankee_Jack]

2nd yellow red. Nasty tackle on oli

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Bolton keeper is getting it done

 

[ivoralljack]

Haven't seen it but prepared to bet that it was YET ANOTHER GROUND SHOT too close to the keeper who saved it.

Another shit penalty

So yes, it sounded like another shit penalty from a totally shit penalty taker. I've no time or patience for this!! It's about time that Potter, or someone on his staff, did their job and replaced Oli with someone who knows how to do it. I like Oli a lot but his insistence on taking penalties could be costing us points, is selfish and self delusional. Admit it, Oli. You're a CRAP penalty taker, so just hand the job to someone with a better technique.

 

[ivoralljack]

How I wish for a Montero who'd skin the full back and put in a series of crosses one of which would surely lead to a goal. As I write, Bolton now down to 9 men and it would be soul destroying if we failed to win from here.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

2nd red for the last man foul.

Oli breaks away but balls up the chance. Should have scored.

 

[ivoralljack]

One caveat to my last post - we've never been great at breaking down a depleted team but we need to go about it carefully. It's just like us to get caught on the break.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

About fucking time. Everybody getting in each other's way. Finally we get a good bounce.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Celina should be our first choice penalty taker or Grimes. Both know how to strike a ball.

 

[ivoralljack]

Celina should be our first choice penalty taker or Grimes. Both know how to strike a ball.

To me it looks like Oli is a typical selfish striker in wanting to boost his goal tally for the season. As a former striker I understand this completely but his own ambitions are hurting the team's chances when he misses one and that cannot be allowed to happen no matter what he thinks. He's an ungainly player, lacks balance and technique and quite simply isn't good enough to take the pens.

As I have said, I like Oli and appreciate the goals he does score and his endless effort in the cause. But even when he scores a penalty, his method always gives an athletic keeper a chance and it's just luck that a keeper guesses the wrong way to go. But here's the thing: even when a keeper guesses correctly, the shot should still beat him but the way Oli takes them that ain't ever going to happen.

Okay, it didn't affect the result today but it has on other occasions and there's always goal difference to consider as well. Not many pay much attention to that early in the season but, as the number of games diminish, it becomes ever more important for obvious reasons.

So, the message is clear, Oli, if you ever read this. Butt out and let someone better take them.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

Penalties should be practiced. If oli is our best.pen taker in practice then the keepers must be crap or they aren't taking it seriously, same for the other takers.

 

[Jackflash]

I didn't get a stream on the game, but we made bloody hard work of it, I looked at the stats around 25mins showing 85%--15% possession yet we had to wait until they were down to 9 men before we could break them down.

 

[Yankee_Jack]

We won the game on the basis of 2 red cards. If Bolton had not been so handicapped then we could still be playing at 0-0. Would Routs have scored on that break away if he hadn't been hacked down ... yes, but you never know ... I wouldn't have bet money on him scoring

 

[Borini]

The lethargy in our passing game starts with our centre backs. Carter Vickers seems to be petrified of passing forward or to the left. He always passes to Van Der Transit. Now Mike has got a good range of passes in him. The problem is he is too slow to see what us ahead of him. When he plays the ball out wide it is usually too late the winger no longer has space, and has to play the ball backwards ...to Carter Vickers then off we go again. If Mike could pass a bit sooner our tempo would improve no end. We also need more movement up front. We had 3 wingers on today and there was no interchanging position just two wide men and an off form Routs in between. We can pass but have forgotten how to move.

 

[Behindthegoal]

" We can pass but have forgotten how to move."
There's two sides to that, Borini. I can't count how many times today the three who live off running on to through balls - Dyer, Routledge and James - had to track back to pick up the pass, by which time they were surrounded by 2 or 3 defenders and had to recycle backwards.
But I also can't count the number of times little passes in and around the box didn't come off because the runner wasn't there.
For all this some credit must go to the Bolton defence who did their job well.

 

[ivoralljack]

Pass and MOVE was something that Martinez, Rodgers and Laudrup drilled into their players in training. Monk and then the other managers gradually managed to erode this over a number of years until we almost lost the art completely.

I remember the MOM pundits, Lawro particularly, saying that the way we played football at that time took years to instil in the team despite the fact that we made it look so easy. They were right. And now we've lost it, it's going to take years to get it back.

You HAVE to have a manager who believes in this and I think that Potter does but he's almost having to start from scratch. Our youngsters have talent and enormous potential but they lack experience, toughness and resilience, which will only come with games. If we could trust the Wanks to leave them the hell alone to develop under Potts, in 2 or 3 seasons we could be looking at a realistic tilt at promotion. But they won't leave them alone as we all well know. To us, they are the future of the club. To the Yanks, they represent a return on investment.

We have to accept the fact that until this cancer is cut from our club, we will never again threaten to reach the Premier League. As a fan base we are impotent. Rag-tag demos and chants are utterly useless. It doesn't hurt the owners who are rarely here to witness it anyway. They just laugh at us and continue with their plans to skin us of every penny they can.

What WILL hurt them is a court action with the maximum glare of bad publicity that could be generated. Only The Trust can do this yet they are still strangely quiet about the action they proposed in their recent communications. I understood that we could expect something by the end of February yet here we are in March with no news of any progress. Time for the Trust to start doing what it was formed to do.