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Post by megsontilidie on Jun 17, 2015 9:16:16 GMT
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/bolton-wanderers/fixturesand Fix is the right word again....after last 2 yr's playing lots of top 6 teams early on.. & a ridiculous start the season we got relegated ..yet again we have a tough start. i can only hope we are better prepared for it and better pre-season with more wins and clean sheets there...building up confidence in strikers who've already notched a few goals. so in our first 5 lge games, we play 4 top half sides, 1 of those made the play offs ( boro) and they were contenders for automatic..as were Derby as we know, bar that late slump. the other team MK dons got promoted and these teams usually are in good nick and still brimming full of confidence, like Bournemouth 2 yrs ago and Brentford last yr ( wolves too ).. Championship Bolton v Derby Sat 8 Aug 15:00 Show League Cup Bolton v Burton Tue 11 Aug 19:45 Show Championship Middlesbrough v Bolton Sat 15 Aug 15:00 Show Championship MK Dons v Bolton Tue 18 Aug 19:45 Show Championship Bolton v Nottm Forest Sat 22 Aug 15:00 Show Championship Blackburn v Bolton Sat 29 Aug 15:00
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Post by megsontilidie on Jun 17, 2015 9:29:57 GMT
i'm never one to defend Df, but his bad starts to seasons were not helped by 2 shocking sets of fixtures...last season & the previous one. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014%E2%80%9315_Bolton_Wanderers_F.C._season1st game..watford away..who went up 2. forest -top half.. outsider for play offs 3. boro made play offs 4. brighton...did poor in the end, but prev season made play offs en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013%E2%80%9314_Bolton_Wanderers_F.C._season#Results_summarynow 13/14 1st game..burnley away- went up..admittedly to most peoples surprise. 2nd reading..who just come down from prem i think and were one of promotion faves 3rd forest...top half side 4. qpr had just come down..promotion fave and ended up going up 5. away to blackburn..top half side 6. 1 winnable home game v leeds 7. derby- another top half side 8. brighton..another top half side..made play offs this season i think and we all remember the season we went down..it was like the previous seasons top 5 all in a row...citeh, arsenal .man u, liv, chelsea etc after that initial qpr game which we did well to win so well. what are the odds of avoiding bottom half sides so regularly in first 5 fixtures ...3 seasons of the last 4. yes we should be coping better against some of these sides, but it's a 50/50 chance that each game should be top half or bottom half.. the probabilities that this should keep happening are ridiculously low. it's no use saying..oh well you've got to play them all in the end..the order does matter....if we assume we generally beat bottom half sides and generally lose to top half sides ( which isn't a bad assumption based on last 3 years ) it's much easier to be in the top half ourselves and accept a defeat or 2 from THAT position. flip it the other way, you're already bottom 2 or 3 then play 2 weaker sides..pressure is on you, crowd is on your back, players are low on confidence..strikers haven't scored...whereas if you play easy then harder teams...strikers may have notched a couple vs weaker sides then go into tougher games full of confidence and cause an upset. that's a big part of the reason why the teams that come up from lge 1 often do better than expected in this Div, and those coming down from Prem do worse than expected. cardiff and fulham both did pretty poor. Brentford and wolves both did well. those coming up bring their winning mentality with them...those coming down are down in the dumps..players and fans, and the losing habit continues !! |
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Post by one2many on Jun 17, 2015 14:22:20 GMT
No strong opinion on this sorry. Too many variables. At least in this league we can be unsure what the results will be. In the Premier, if you get Chelsea, Man U, Arsenal, etc you can be 99.99999% certain of defeat.
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Post by megsontilidie on Jun 17, 2015 15:37:39 GMT
you're right one2many it should be easier against this top 4 or 6 compared to the Prem, but over last 2 years, it's been almost as tough. www.statto.com/football/teams/bolton-wanderers/2014-2015look at the results table there...red for defeat... played top 4 ....8 straight losses home and away ! no wins against any of top 9 away ..8 of those being losses. www.statto.com/football/teams/bolton-wanderers/2013-2014for 13/14 similar story... 1 win in 18 games ( home and away ) against the top 9. against the top 9 sides away... 7 losses and 2 draws. plenty of wins ( green) against the bottom half for both years. i'm hoping part of that is the DF effect and we can do a little bit better against the top sides but that's about turning draws to wins and losses to draws. i'm not expecting miracles..just to win, say 4 of 18 against the top 9 would be decent progress in right direction. avoid a relegation battle, finish in top half...and build from there . |
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Post by riochforthereebok on Jun 17, 2015 19:26:31 GMT
I'm not too sure about this Paul Clement chap!! He could be a success like that Jokanovic at Warford, or could turn out like Brian Kidd, an excellent number 2 but cack at coal face management and for that reason, I'm finding it hard to predict how we will fare against The Rams!
It is a tough start for us but Neil should find it a bit better second time around as they will be virtually all his players or at least moulded into his way of playing.
Can you imagine going into the Burton game against Jimmy Floyd Hassalbainks exciting bunch of players with 3 points in the league from beating Derby?? That would get the ReeMac crowd up for the challenge.
We can do it
In NL we trust COYWM
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Post by OohMac on Jun 17, 2015 21:38:56 GMT
Got a point Megson, and i always argue that the top teams are much harder to face in the opening two months. All fresh players, no suspensions and few injuries. Playing without real pressure and no European backlash. Add to that decent pitches instead of winter veg patches and everything seems stacked for the better footballing teams.
I disagree with giving Dougie slack, yes they were tough games but he had no momentum from pre-season and slumped after the first few games. There was no momentum. If we'd have won the first game we may have gone on to pick up a lot more points. (Like we did in a few Premiership campaign.
Win at Derby and pressures off straight away, can play some reserves against Burton without feeling the need to win. (i'm up for a cup run but with so many games I think we should stick to FA Cup)
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Post by Trotter on Jun 19, 2015 15:30:50 GMT
New season new start new players new philosophy the futures bright the futures white.
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Post by kazooki on Jun 21, 2015 23:25:42 GMT
It was exactly the same the season we got relegated, what narked me too in that season is that Newcastle were lauded for being in the top 6 playing great football yet didn't really face any quality opposition for about 7 or 8 games, they played nearly all bottom half and the newly promoted teams and their confidence was sky high, we got battered every week and confidence was at an all time low going into the games against lesser teams we should have beaten easily.
A good start can have a dramatic effect on our season, if we lose 4 or 5 you can bet it will be tough to turn around.
This is partly why I felt a little sorry for DF at the time and felt that he needed more time to put it right, in the end it was apparent he was a complete f*&kwit and should have been sacked earlier.
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Post by megsontilidie on Jun 23, 2015 18:26:19 GMT
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