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Post by davidm on Jan 30, 2016 18:30:52 GMT
Truly Pathetic
What a gutless, lazy, sloppy first half that was.
The second half was a little better but, in all honesty, we only pressured Leeds for the final 15 minutes.
I am sick of saying this but the line-up of 2 wingers, who occasionally have a good game like last week, and Madine stuck up front with no support within 20 yards of him is doomed to fail 99% of the time.
Neither of the wingers offered any defensive help and were both poor in the attack so we struggled. This shape also leaves our midfield wide open and, yet again, the opposition midfield just ran through acres of space.
This is so much relegation form and half the team give the impression of not caring. They can neither pass accurately nor move into space to receive a pass. Absolutely shocking.
We played terrible in the first half so did the manager make any changes? No! We had to wait until half way through the second half for a sub and we still only used 2 subs.
Apparently all the players are up for sale – well I could gladly see half of them out the door tomorrow and not worry. They are not Championship quality.
Marks :-
Amos - 3 Terrible mistake for goal 1. These mistakes are stacking up now. Conceding that goal just set the depressing mood for an awful first half.
Vela - 5 Beaten a few times, including goal 1. At least he appeared to care and tried.
Moxey - 4 Some dreadful passing today. Caught out badly for goal no 2.
Holding - 6 Probably only one of two players to look all right today.
Dervite - 5 Caught out of position endlessly in first half.
Feeney - 4 Usual rubbish. His centering is hit it and hope.
Silva - 4 Too much showboating! For every MK Dons game, he has 3 or 4 shockers.
Trotter - 6 Quite steady and a couple of good bursts.
Davies - 3 What a dreadful performance. I cannot think of one positive pass he made. All passes were either sideways or backwards. Badly at fault for goal 2 as he let the scorer run unchallenged into the box to score. Mind you, he is still played out of position. He is a no 10. An attacking midfielder.
Pratley - 3 Terrible despite the goal. Headless chicken who neither tackled well nor passed well. Not a captain.
Madine - 5 Played on his own with no support again. He had 5 attempts on goal including 3 poor misses.
Manager - 3 Tactics all wrong. Cannot motivate this team. Why not change it at half time. Totally out of his depth these days.
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Post by andyl on Jan 30, 2016 19:34:43 GMT
When push comes to shove only really Holding and Trotter looked the part today. Silva was lively but with no end product. You could sell the rest tomorrow. Woolery tried to get into it to be fair. Spearing made his usual passing mistake. The third sub was unused. Why!! Meanwhile Steve Evans outmanoeuvred Neil at every turn. They just sat back and counter attacked. It's easy and predictable. I don't think Evans had to break sweat to get the better of Neil. It is so depressing.
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Post by realtrottersforever on Jan 30, 2016 22:06:25 GMT
Utterly awful and a downright disgrace. There must be hundreds of ways I could've better spent my £20 today. None of the players seemed to want to win this one and Lennon neither. I agree 100%with David in that I wouldn't keep more than 4 or 5 of the current shower and the rest I would gladly drive them wherever they want to go and the first would be Mark Davies, he is robbing a living off us, living off his supposed talent. Feeney must have some incriminating pictures of NL to continually be picked and never be subbed. As for Trotter apart from one or two maybe good moments he was ineffectual, lumbering, just poor HE IS NOT A FOOTBALLER. Madine is not a striker, Dervite is a poor defender and Amos gives the opposition a goal a game how in God's name are we supposed to win games.
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Post by andyl on Jan 31, 2016 6:12:53 GMT
I think that's harsh on Trotter on yesterday,rtf. He is certainly lumbering but he is one of the few who can play football.
There though ends any disagreement and you can throw in Moxey and Vela for me.
Time and time again this year we have had flashes of successes. But Neil with little thought tries to repeat what worked briefly and we revert to the same old game with no protection for defending and no cutting edge.
It's not solely about players. It's about who is selected to do what,training,tactics and finding ways to get the best out of what's available. We see good things in every game but lose most to sides who have few better players but who are more organised have a system and practise it .
The baseline for all teams is not to give goals away. We just leave ourselves wide open to counter attacks time and time again
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Post by Trotter on Jan 31, 2016 9:02:20 GMT
Sad to hear such staunch supporters reflect on our team in what is known as the greatest cup competition in the world.
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Post by davidm on Jan 31, 2016 9:22:17 GMT
Sad to hear such staunch supporters reflect on our team in what is known as the greatest cup competition in the world. I'm not sure if you are having a go at staunch supporters for complaining or the team for driving us to such abuse.
Like everyone on here, I love this club, have followed them all over from Div 4 to Premiership and now on the way back down but I despair at the approach to games that these players (and the management team) have.
Yesterday was a chance to progress, as you say in the greatest cup competition in the world, get kudos and, from the players point of view, show the country that they are decent players.
But almost from minute one they just stood off, expected things to happen and failed to respond until the final 15 minutes.
We now have a very average (maybe even poor) set of players with just a few exceptions but our approach to games is pitiful. Because we beat a very poor MK Dons last week, the manager set us up exactly the same. A system that has brought about defeat in more than half our games this season. Any reasonable team (and that is all Leeds are) can easily suss us out before kick-off and control the game easily.
With all the off the field issues, I hoped the team and management could bring some relief to the horrors but no. When anyone retorts with "the side are being dragged down because of the off the field issues", I point you to Northampton Town. They were within a few days (maybe even hours) of being wound up earlier this season and where are they in the league? TOP.
I cannot see an end to this misery in the near future.
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Post by OohMac on Jan 31, 2016 9:24:13 GMT
Massively disappointed again today. I just feel Neil Lennon is the worst of the worst. Pains me to see Dougie on a 13 match unbeaten run and looking up at the playoff places. Had Dougie had Neil's PR prowess it might have been different. Had Neil has Dougie's budget and squad that too maybe have been a different story. Though on evidence that may have led to a load of poor players that appears to be a "buy first, see what they're like later" plan.
We all believed, I think, that last time we went down we would bounce back. Squad of internationals, experience but I don't believe we would be anywhere near the top half of league one. They are tactically so poor we are really relying on not just poor teams but poor teams having a really off day.
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Post by joanna on Jan 31, 2016 11:30:29 GMT
I tend to agree with rtf about Trotter You'd have to have the skills of Le Tiss in order to compensate for such lack of pace, and Trotter certainly lacks any resemblance to Matt Le T. In fact, he isn't even as speedy! He contributes far too seldom in a match.
But if Lennon had not picked the same team as for MK Dons, the fans would have thought he'd gone mad, done a Dougie, and tinkered unnecessarily.
The problem is individual mistakes that can't be catered for no matter how hard they are trained: Unaccountably, Amos gifts them an early goal and all the impetus and buoyancy of the recent wins is lost.
There is very little of quality on the bench that would improve the chosen eleven, and whilst I agree that continuing to employ a failed formation is unwise, the fact that it worked well last time out must have given rise to an expectation that it would succeed again.
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Post by andyl on Jan 31, 2016 12:16:02 GMT
I tend to agree with rtf about Trotter You'd have to have the skills of Le Tiss in order to compensate for such lack of pace, and Trotter certainly lacks any resemblance to Matt Le T. In fact, he isn't even as speedy! He contributes far too seldom in a match. But if Lennon had not picked the same team as for MK Dons, the fans would have thought he'd gone mad, done a Dougie, and tinkered unnecessarily. The problem is individual mistakes that can't be catered for no matter how hard they are trained: Unaccountably, Amos gifts them an early goal and all the impetus and buoyancy of the recent wins is lost. There is very little of quality on the bench that would improve the chosen eleven, and whilst I agree that continuing to employ a failed formation is unwise, the fact that it worked well last time out must have given rise to an expectation that it would succeed again. No! I disagree. What works against an injury depleted MK Dons could never work in other situations. Dervite is dreadful full stop. And what about thinking ahead to Wolves? We could have rested Feeney and may as well have rested Davies. Two wingers losing the ball and starting counter attacks has been a theme of many many games and it must be obvious that Madine flounders upfront on his own Re Trotter this week both BN and LoV reports made him our man of match much as both I and David above by default admittedly but as having done some good things. The job of a manager is surely to plan for each specific opposition and adjust resources and tactics to confront each and every team.
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Post by davidm on Jan 31, 2016 12:33:28 GMT
I tend to agree with rtf about Trotter You'd have to have the skills of Le Tiss in order to compensate for such lack of pace, and Trotter certainly lacks any resemblance to Matt Le T. In fact, he isn't even as speedy! He contributes far too seldom in a match. But if Lennon had not picked the same team as for MK Dons, the fans would have thought he'd gone mad, done a Dougie, and tinkered unnecessarily. The problem is individual mistakes that can't be catered for no matter how hard they are trained: Unaccountably, Amos gifts them an early goal and all the impetus and buoyancy of the recent wins is lost. There is very little of quality on the bench that would improve the chosen eleven, and whilst I agree that continuing to employ a failed formation is unwise, the fact that it worked well last time out must have given rise to an expectation that it would succeed again. I'm afraid that I disagree on you on team formation, Joanna.
Yes, we beat MK Dons with this formation and it was an exciting performance but this formation has lost us more than half the matches we have played this season.
We have endlessly been caught on the counter attack and been swamped by an overrun midfield. The situation with playing Madine isolated 20 yards on his own is terrible.
Leeds played 4-2-4 yesterday and easily outfought and out-thought us. We brought on Woolery (a striker!) but played him out on the wing. What a waste.
The layout of the team and style of play is a losing one.
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Post by riochforthereebok on Jan 31, 2016 13:03:53 GMT
I'll probably get slated for saying this but it seems to me that MK Dons players had one eye firmly on today's game v Chelsea when they turned up against us last week and that's probably what made us look good and got us the result!!
If something was going to happen at BWFC re takeover, it should have happened by now!! Let's face it, the only serious buyers out there, all one of em, are no doubt waiting to see if administration or relegation happens or maybe even both before they offer there value on us! Due diligence with some of the biggest takeovers in world businesses have never taken as long as the takeover of BWFC there must be something more sinister going on if it ain't happened by now. Just wish the BN could dig deep and find out once and for all.
On a positive note: Bury Oldham Blackpool Crewe Port Vale Barnsley Bradford Wigan Rochdale Doncaster Fleetwood Not so bad if you like away travel!!!
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Post by spanishjonny on Jan 31, 2016 13:18:38 GMT
Couldn't make it yesterday, listened to it on GMR, Dean Holden was with Dearden after 10mins Holden was shocked how 'wide open' we were when we lose possession, he could see the problem after 10mins that Lennon & co have had all season to solve Lose the ball, in 2 passes the opposition are usually in our box having a shot and on target! Near the end Holden said that Leeds players had only scored a '6' or a '7' each but had all done their job and played like an organised outfit Any team with effort and a plan can beat us at the moment
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Post by joanna on Jan 31, 2016 16:44:22 GMT
David and Andy, you need to re-read what I wrote. All I'm saying is that fans couldn't reasonably have expected NL to change a team that had just won successive matches at last, and had scored 6 goals. He would have been slated by most supporters for such a move, especially if they'd lost an early goal through an individual error. Certainly, DF in his infinite wisdom had little success trying to second guess what opposition teams were going to do, tinkering accordingly.....and he bored the pants off us in the process.
Once Amos made his disastrous blunder, our lack of confidence resurfaced and we were on the back foot again. Obviously, when efforts to retrieve the situation foundered, NL would have been wise to change the formation, although the bench looks even less promising than the chosen ones most of the time. The ones on the pitch did at least look threatening once some confidence and optimism had been restored by prolific Pratley's goal.
I think you misunderstand or fail to appreciate the present inevitable state of mind of the whole club. Confidence is massive in sport, which is why I have been calling for the fans to get behind the team, as Pompey's magnificent supporters do at all times and no matter how desperate the plight. We Boltonians prefer a good old moan and whinge even before a ball is kicked and certainly following the first mistake! How does that help?
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Post by OohMac on Jan 31, 2016 18:04:12 GMT
You might be right Joanna, but I can't help thinking there's a bit of hypocrisy in what you say. You were always so keen to slam Bogdan(rightfully or not)
It's a myth than any fans "love a good moan". No one prefers to come away from any game after a loss. We're no different but after the absolute rubbish we've had for 5 years were more entitled to it.
That goal aside we never had a shot on target, at home. It's worrying that Neil thinks he can't be blamed for that.
I have no real answers but I would write Silva off as a midfielder. Stick him as a striker or drop him. Feeney too, they make our team so light and offer little to the midfield. Comstantly giving away far too much of the ball, which is fine if we could absorb pressure and play counter attack football is fine but we do neither.
Also when was the last "howler" did we ever benefit from? I can't remember us having a lucky deflection, own goal or mishap but I can remember us giving them away regularly.
I don't know what's worse having no hope or still having a glimmer of hope that under the right guidance this squad are still capable of survival. Not Dervite though. He's the only player I've completely wrote off.
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Post by joanna on Jan 31, 2016 18:35:23 GMT
No, Oomac, I was not slating Boggers but simply keen to point out that Lonergan and Jussi were far superior to him; he is capable of good saves, but extremely error-prone as this season has continued to prove.
Have you ever been to Portsmouth? Did you watch MOTD yesterday? Now that's what I call total support. No moaning there, whatever the circumstances, just loud singing. We (BWFC fans) "only sing when we're winning!" Northerners are known for their moaning.
And who would you recommend to replace Silva and Feeney? Answers to NL asap. He has been dealt a shocking hand.
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