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Post by davidm on Jan 12, 2022 9:47:12 GMT
I said before the game - "I am usually Mr Super Optimist but I watched the Wycombe v Sunderland game on Sky on Saturday and both these teams (who we play in 2 of our next 3 home games) were excellent. They were strong, fast and knew where the goal was. A few attributes that we are currently missing."
Well, as I feared. Wycombe were just better in all aspects of the game.
We started reasonably and the first 25 minutes were OK but even then we could have conceded 3 times in that “decent” spell. Wycombe had a corner which wizzed across the 6-yard box (keeper??) and was scrambled out, they then had a one on one where they should have scored and Dixon made a good save and then just before the goal, Santos lost the ball in his complacent manner and it ended up with a blocked shot that Aimson somehow got his foot to.
In this spell Charles had a decent chance saved by the keeper and we put some pressure on.
And then it all went wrong.
We lost the ball in midfield and backed off and backed off. The Wycombe forward had shown his intent minutes earlier by running forward and shooting but we didn’t learn and just backed off and allowed a shot. I haven’t seen the highlights but to me I feel that Dixon’s attempted save was poor with a weak hand to the shot.
And at that stage the game was lost – what is it? 19 times we have conceded first out of 24 games – awful.
Our fight was then over after 30 minutes.
There was a lot of moaning at the referee about Wycombe’s time-wasting but we would have done the same – in fact we did at Rotherham so let’s not hide behind that.
We just got worst. That is a bad trend that we have developed - in that the 2nd halves of matches we are dreadful – toothless.
The 2nd half was just poor. John got isolated two on one but made a mess of trying to clear which resulted in a wonder shot from their full back. Would any of our players have attempted a shot in those circumstances? – no way, it would have been a sideways or backwards pass.
Overall, Wycombe were significantly stronger in the challenge, passed the ball better and looked like a team and we were a shambles. There is just no urgency in our play. We are losing but we continue to stroll about. No passion.
The ongoing farce of corners and free kicks continued. Why doesn’t the coaching staff attempt to change this? We can now add throw-ins into the farce. There is never anyone available to throw the ball to and we nearly always lose possession within 2 or 3 touches, Shambles.
One final whinge – we sign a striker who by all definitions is not match fit and will not last more than 60 minutes so why oh why do we allow our only other out and striker to immediately leave the club. Shocking management.
Marks:-
Dixon - 3 One excellent one on one save but weak for the first goal. Still no control of his area and his kicking was dreadful. Fossey - 6 Promising. The only one with pace/desire to attack. Will that get coached out of him? John - 3 Started OK so it was promising but just sunk. Awful dead balls again Santos - 3 So casual. Lost possession a number of times. Not a captain, in fact not worth a starting place Aimson - 4 Mistake which allowed the early one on one but a couple of good blocks. Passing awful. Williams - 4 Not dominant at all and looked quite lost Bakayoko - 2 Dreadful, highlighted in the 2nd half when he had a chance on his right foot but tried to turn onto his only foot that he can kick with and lost possession. Ball control abysmal Thomason - 4 Struggled throughout. The strength of Wycombe’s midfield overran him. Unlucky to hit the post in the last minute Afolayan - 3 What has happened to him? A few lively touches but no end product Lee - 5 Busy but a struggle Charles - 5 Decent performance. He now knows what playing upfront on his own for us is about Delfouneso - 2 Hopeless – no contribution at all Jones - 5 Good. If he can keep his fitness now, he and Fossey could make a decent right side attack. Darcy - Nice to see but little impact in the short time he was on
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Post by realtrottersforever on Jan 12, 2022 11:13:36 GMT
another moral victory for Evatt, with possession over 55%. more relevant stat. Wycombe 5 shots on target to our 3. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%9321_Bolton_Wanderers_F.C._season#Results_summarythe patterns still following last year pretty closely..not that i'm expecting the same end result as last year. & i did tip us to go up last year even in Jan ( and had money on it ) DESPITE EVATT not because of him. the good thing about the forum is , the posts are all there to check back on. Andy can probably find one when he is worrying about relegation back then too, though i feel you can at least make a decent case this year now, but i'll still for now dismiss it...and again ,not due to any faith in IE. look back at the colour coded results in that link. a bad december last season, starting with port vale 6-3 at home. beat at walsall 2-1 , lost 3-0 to Tranmere at home. then very lucky to scrape a 3-3 at Carlisle after being at least 2-0..was it even 3-0 at one point !? & could have easily been 5-0 down. Jan started with a 1-0 loss at home to Crawley..despite star player Max Watters not playing for them. we got a few creditable draws , before finally finishing the month with a 2-0 home win to a depleted Orient side, without one of the lge's topscorers in Danny Johnson. that was our only win in January and it came on the 30th!. then things gradually got better mainly after the Mansfield turnaround when we were 2-0 down in that one. back to yesterday. well after saying we were hard to beat at home, even that crumbling a bit now. I still don't see relegation, although admittedly it's not impossible. if this bad fixture run kills that home form & general momentum mirrors the away form it's certainly possible. you can argue, at least say we've only lost 3 home games & all 3 are to top 3 or 4 sides. Wycombe though doing really well don't seem to have that many individuals. I felt them playing on sat'day would take the edge off their intensity & give us more chance. so I can understand them time-wasting to take the pace out of the game and control it more. always makes me chuckle when IE moans about time wasting....as passing the ball about endlessly at the back as we do, is virtually time wasting our own time. I felt before, Evatt almost doesn't mind losing during transfer windows as he just uses it for leverage for even more signings. what an indictment it would be for a side to get relegated after saying we were the best team in the lge. . en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%9322_Bolton_Wanderers_F.C._season#Results_summarylooking at our colour coded grid of results this year. it's grim reading. without that good start, we'd be in serious trouble. few wins or even draws against top half sides. & if they are top half now, like Ipswich they were'nt top half when we beat them.
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Post by whitesince63 on Jan 12, 2022 14:21:59 GMT
I think relegation is a serious consideration and I honestly can’t see where the next point is going to come from. Despite a decent 30 minutes first half we never seriously looked like scoring, other than Dions one on one. We have no leadership at all and are weak in all areas. We have lost and comfortably lost remember, to a non league club in Stockport as well as being out played by a L2 second string team. This isn’t temporary, this is permanent because this was nearly our best side last night. Something is missing. There’s no heart, no drive or determination. Is that down to the players or lack of belief in Evatt? I’m more and more leaning towards the latter.
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Post by riochforthereebok on Jan 12, 2022 15:33:55 GMT
It’s Evatt W63, no other culprit Would Doyle have left?? Would Sarce have left?? Either playing under a decent manager with a winning mentality would have stayed I can imagine Ian Evatt’s bookshelf at home Shankly Paisley Ferguson Clough You will never be in the presence of names like this and your players will subsequently never be in the same categories as Best Law Charlton Keegan Dalgleish or Ronaldo so if one of your players objects to something your doing (Sarce Doyle) try listening and engaging before sulking and spitting your dummy out When you start to look at the Gillingham’s, Doncaster’s, Morecambe’s and Crewe’s of this division , what divides them and us from relegation? Big club (relatively speaking of course) ex Premier League, Premier stadium, 17k+ crowds, none of it matters, we are all where we deserve to be on playing merit and it’s all down to one man, Evatt. 3 if you count Chris Markham and his poor eye for talent (worse than Tobias Phoenix) and of course our Shazza, for giving Ian the most incredible, loved up backing anyone can I strongly feel that she will see out the 3 year plan and then bugger off leaving us in the hands of ??😬😬😬 when we are back in L2 Shame really as the outlook was very rosier than at anytime in the last few years
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Post by realtrottersforever on Jan 12, 2022 16:33:55 GMT
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Post by realtrottersforever on Jan 13, 2022 13:05:26 GMT
you know how a lot of the younger ,fanatical element of the fanbase have this idea of Santos as the best centre back outside the PL, or at least outside the top 2 Div's. it's almost like a core belief for the cult'ish element.
well ,some brave souls among that element are floating the idea, he ain't that great. still one or 2 of those are not having it. not to blow smoke up ourselves on here, but we must be light years ahead of them.
take a look at some of these : ( give it a sec or 2, tweets might take a moment to fully load )
<<this is probably the best judgement for me, by Dean S.
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Post by realtrottersforever on Jan 13, 2022 14:46:28 GMT
relating to my post above www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/bolton-championship-almeida-santos-evatt-19242410" Santos has been as good a centre half as I’ve seen outside of the Championship and that’s not exaggerating - I think he’s that good"
quotes by Evatt from Nov'20. deary me , after the start he had. & port vale and tranmere etc soon on the horizon in Dec'20 www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/bolton-ricardo-santos-shrewsbury-evatt-21746728from Oct'21. Santos - imperious. A nd Evatt believes it is peculiar to see a player with the wealth of attributes Santos has at his disposal, believing that his leadership qualities are next on the agenda to improve and develop.
The Bolton boss said: “It’s strange to see a player with that many attributes. He’s quick, he’s strong, he’s good in the air, he can play with the ball and he’s improving with the ball all the time and he can defend.
"We’re very lucky to have him, but we still feel there’s improvement there. I still feel he can develop more as a leader and as a voice. Rico is such a lovely man, a fantastic man, a great man.
www.thesun.co.uk/sport/14453232/santos-bolton-unbeaten-man-utd-chelsea/N ow Evatt wants Santos to go through the divisions with the club. How does he feel about being talked about like that?But he’s imperious when he’s in that type of form and George similar was fantastic again. Alex has done great whenever we’ve called upon him and we’ve got Will returning to fitness, so we’re blessed with some good players. We feel like we’ve got a good squad.” a little bit of talking up can be a very good thing. but blimey, maybe he needs to fire off a few more rockets. so far looking at these quotes and the bad form that followed, all talking up has done is it's led to complacency. i'm not forgetting that initial hyping IE gave to RS.."lightning pace". it took about half a game of watching him for real to realise that was absolute tosh.
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Post by whitesince63 on Jan 13, 2022 16:21:08 GMT
I’ve often thought that Santos would be better in midfield rather than defence because he isn’t without skill, does have some pace and can pick a pass. Most of his deficiencies for me are in defence where he lumbers about, is slow to turn and makes suicide passes. He certainly isn’t captain material and whether it’s character building for him personally or not is irrelevant, it’s surely the team that matters? IE as a former CH himself should see this but maybe Rico is such a lovely chap he prefers to ignore it. For me I’d rather have a nasty bugger at CH than a cherub!!
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Post by andyl on Jan 13, 2022 19:26:53 GMT
Santos has been an unmitigated disaster as captain. He hasn't set foot in midfield for weeks. He turns away from challenges and blocks. He lummoxes about not knowing when to go tight, to mark men. And he's hopeless in the air at both ends- He probably makes Zat Knight look good. OK he gets a head on some balls. Look at Vokes aerial dominance ( see rtf earlier). All Vokes had to do was drift away and many of those headers were more or less unopposed. Santos wasn't even using his weight and power to lean in. At present ( and I accept he did better at a lower level- for the most part with Lee and Williams as a defensive midfield pair and Baptiste and Gilks acting as puppeteers.) he's lost all confidence and impact.
In front of Dixon, awful. That first goal on Tue- talk about the Red Sea opening for Moses---we more or less laid down the red carpet. It was pa-th-et-ic!!!
If Evatt can't see this he is incompetent- end of- and should be sent packing asap. In fact very few of the players brought in initially have come to much , have they?
Meanwhile contrast Wycombe- complete aerial dominance( again see rtf above) and a good many of those headers were in defence clearing corners and free kicks- decisively to the ball first time and often smaller players getting there. Did we clear the first man. Just when we thought John's service couldn't be worse, we got Dapo but credit Wycombe- and all this time Santos was up for corners. Has he landed a head on any or had any impact whatsoever in their box. None.
Santos cannot start on Saturday, just cannot- we have never had a centre half so out of form and confidence... and much the same goes for Dixon in goal.
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Post by riochforthereebok on Jan 14, 2022 9:10:47 GMT
I’m completely underwhelmed with the January window thus far, more underwhelmed than I am in Ian Evatt, so that’s sayin summat
Trafford Charles Morley
Sounds like an accountant company in Radcliffe
These are not quality signings at all in my view and I know I’ll probably get pelters for calling it before we’ve really even seen them in action, but these are players brought in that can only compliment what we already have, rubbish, rather than improve them
2 x 20 year olds and a contract rebel that is unfit, awaiting a ban and not scored in ages I feel like we are going backwards and almost as if he is resigned to League 2 again
Sorry but Ipswich will return the favour on Saturday for a 4 nil battering of the Trotters And it’s all because of Evatt
“IanEvattable” one of the best puns I’ve ever seen😂😂
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Post by whitesince63 on Jan 14, 2022 11:49:37 GMT
I’m completely underwhelmed with the January window thus far, more underwhelmed than I am in Ian Evatt, so that’s sayin summat Trafford Charles Morley Sounds like an accountant company in Radcliffe These are not quality signings at all in my view and I know I’ll probably get pelters for calling it before we’ve really even seen them in action, but these are players brought in that can only compliment what we already have, rubbish, rather than improve them 2 x 20 year olds and a contract rebel that is unfit, awaiting a ban and not scored in ages I feel like we are going backwards and almost as if he is resigned to League 2 again Sorry but Ipswich will return the favour on Saturday for a 4 nil battering of the Trotters And it’s all because of Evatt “IanEvattable” one of the best puns I’ve ever seen😂😂 Such doom and gloom and not that I totally disagree but surely we can at least wait until these players have actually played, or in Charles case, got fit. I do have a concern with the age Evatt is looking at, especially Trafford, where I think like most that we should have gone for more experience. Andy doesn’t think Santos should start but without him we’d have no height at all at the back, so he would be in for me. It’s up front my concerns still are with Charles not sharp and Dapo looking down in the dumps. Like you rftr, I’m completely underwhelmed by the signings on the face of them so let’s hope they turn out better than we think? Evatt has to be held to account if they don’t come off and no more of this “managers need time” bollocks. Spending what money we have has to work first time and if it doesn’t and we keep losing so weakly, he has to go I’m afraid. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that shall we? 🥴
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Post by OohMac on Jan 14, 2022 18:53:28 GMT
Derby not been allowed to extend Jagielkas deal. A few have mentioned his name proved his worth.
As for the other signings - the goalkeeper doesnt make sense. Unless he is THAT good already but then why isnt he staying at Accrington.
The other signings are ok. But just ok. If we expect a repeat of last Jan to May we are going to be disappointed, and its unfair.
Just wonder who will be the next scapegoat? Should re hire Tobias Phoenix, handy just to have around. Like a sacrificial pawn.
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Post by whitesince63 on Jan 15, 2022 9:19:11 GMT
Derby not been allowed to extend Jagielkas deal. A few have mentioned his name proved his worth. As for the other signings - the goalkeeper doesnt make sense. Unless he is THAT good already but then why isnt he staying at Accrington. The other signings are ok. But just ok. If we expect a repeat of last Jan to May we are going to be disappointed, and its unfair. Just wonder who will be the next scapegoat? Should re hire Tobias Phoenix, handy just to have around. Like a sacrificial pawn. Jagielka would be perfect OM but we won’t get him for two reasons. Firstly he’d want too much money in wages and secondly because Evatt would feel threatened by his experience. Consequently we get kids.
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