M K Dons v Bolton Wanderers....match thread

Ha ha, straight to the point rftr as always. I’m afraid I can’t see anything but a defeat either, which is just such a sad indictment of where we are, confidence almost completely gone. But they say hope springs eternal so you never know? I’m just hoping that he doesn’t rush Crawford back too early. The only thing to play for now is to finish above Southend and Tranmere and to try to build the core of a team for next year. Whether Politic and Darcy will be part of that I’m not sure but at least if DP goes we will get a fee whereas if Darcy goes without signing up we get little or nothing. I realise not being able to tie these guys down is a symptom of our current situation but you’d hope a little bit of loyalty from Ronan would come into it as he’s been here so long. He may not get quite as much money now but he’ll certainly get first team football, hopefully a promotion medal and enhance his career and earning capacity in the process? Anyway, back to tomorrow, whatever team he puts out unless we cut the defensive errors we won’t get anything so despite the feeling they’ll put up a decent performance I have to go 2-0 to MKD.

Just seen the team. If Hamilton and Politic are really meant to be playing wide, they are both being wasted. Also why not Brockbank and Bunney at FB (surely next season's pair). Pity he still finds a place for Luke Murphy. Can't see much pace in this team. I really hope I'm wrong but I'm not confident.

It is just so depressing; it’s hard to comment other than yet another poor insipid result.



We are allowing teams to play very average football and still to beat us.



I am always optimistic before games but have sadly come to the conclusion that we have a very poor set of footballers who are currently being managed very poorly.



On another matter, just how poor is Radio Manchester’s commentary?



I don’t need to be told every 5 minutes that I am listening to “Radio Manchester on 95.1 FM with Jack Dearden and Marc Iles”. I know what channel I am tuned in to! You just don’t get a picture of the play at all with these commentaries.

I genuinely have completely lost the will now, I can’t even be bothered to be disappointed in either the result or performance, my expectations have just got that low these days. When Parky departed and FV finally completed the takeover, I really believed the bad days were behind us and it was all forward from there, despite the embargo’s and points deductions but boy was I wrong. At the moment, if nothing changes, I see only further decline next year as well but without even those young braves who gave us so much pride despite results earlier in the season. Hills dismissal of most of them and criticism of others seems to have alienated them rather than consolidated them. Most of the journeymen he’s brought in are older but no better than they are and at least they can use youth and inexperience as an excuse, Hills wasters certainly can’t. I know I sound like a broken record but I still maintain this year should have been a building process around our youth supplemented by some experience not replaced by it and that should have been done by David Lee and the the other coaches already here. Some say DL lacks experience but for me he’s worked here under some of the best managers we’ve ever had, isn’t too young and has that positive, can do attitude that’s sadly lacking. Can anyone really tell me he would have done worse than KH? I don’t know what FV are thinking but surely they must now be wondering if they didn’t get this appointment badly wrong. Maybe they see something we don’t but if results don’t change soon I see big problems looming for them.

Going back to a previous thread, the carrot and stick approach to man management from Hill.

Politic on decent form, has a 5/10 performance where no one did well. Gets singled out in the media. How does he respond? Poorest game in a Bolton shirt so far? Misjudged once again.

I know its a bloody tough job. I know Pochettino probably may get better offers but is there any evidence that this guy -who last got sacked from Rochdale, has no L1 success and is as small fry as they get in management, is he really the man? Based on what?

Genuinely believe when FV took him on they based it on him being Boltonian, a club pulling together, rising up. This guy is alienating fans, youth team and sinking like a stone in the process.

More to that why is "Flicker"(hate that) here as a number 2.

When Hill was sacked at Barnsley it was Flicker, his no2, who took the reigns and replaced Hill. Then went on to be a manager in his own right.

Now they're back as it was at Barnsley when Flitcroft took the job from Hill.

In fact in terms of honours theres little in it, think Flicker(really do hate it) has a better win ratio than Chief Hill.


Does it not seem odd that DF has gone number 2 when really he would have been a real candidate on his own. And does the Barnsley link not murky the waters even more?

As Andyl says, this was another poor game between two very mediocre teams. Watching the live stream as I do, I still have the sense that the team has no sensible structure. Apart from the full backs, we have no real presence wide, so rarely, if ever succeed in turning the opposition defence and really looking like we might score. In this game Lowe in the first half and our FB was our greatest wide threat (and it wasn’t a big one)

Today we had Politic and , for much of the first half, Mellis or Hamilton as the widest midfield players. I ask you. What is exactly the point of that? Given their skills, all three kept drifting infield leaving us far too narrow and the FBs horribly exposed on the break. Politic in particular is struggling, it seems that the burden of being our most (only) creative player is weighing on him. Sometimes it looks like he thinks he has to out Sterling Sterling and out De Bruyne De Bruyne. I’d prefer it if he manned up a bit and didn’t allow himself to be so easily ushered off the ball. The same goes for most of our current squad eg Fleming is full of boyish enthusiasm and energy, but has pitifully little bodily strength for this league. Finally, how many hoofed clearances actually were directed towards Politic? ... utterly idiotic.

As Andyl says, Crawford was nowhere near match ready and should not have started, but even had he been 100% he had no options for forward passes and soon sank into obscurity.

We are a very poor team, poorly set up and  poorly coached and managed. I’m sorry, but for me, Hill is simply not good enough. He has developed an appallingly unbalanced squad, full of players who want to play centrally, devoid of insight and trickery and above all pace on the flanks. Counterattacking is therefore just not an option. His utter inability to change the flow of a game by astute tactical changes stands out a mile. I don’t like to say this, but we should get shut of him now. I’m tempted to say that a citizens committee of fans from this site would do a better job - seriously I think its that bad.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, surely we now have to use the remaining games to give the players who will be here next season the chance to bond and gain experience. Ditch the increasingly uncommitted loanees. I don’t want to hear about it being too hard for them and counterproductive in this league. Let’s face it, it is an extremely low standard of football. With good coachng and sold tactical drilling, we’d do better than this aimless, rudderless drift that is KH’s tenure.