Bolton v Oxford United

What a desperate game that was.

But if you can play that poorly and still win, it gives hope. The other results also helped us but we desperately need to find some form and find it quickly.

Defensively we were under pressure before the kick-off as none of the back 3 can win a header but having said all that we defended, sometimes desperately, and kept them out.

Midfield though was awful. We have a quality line up in midfield but today was terrible. No decent passing, no ball retention just desperate big boot.

Upfront, we are restricted to one goalscorer, Charles. All of the others are just toothless.



We started well and took the lead when determined play by Bradley won some space. His centre was pushed out by the keeper but Charles was there to hammer it in.

And we played OK for a while but then drifted.

The last 15 minutes of the 1st half belonged to Oxford who more or less had all the ball.

We got caught when a whack out of defence caught Williams on his heels. Trafford had a rush of blood and took out the attacker. I think the referee got it right with a Yellow as Williams had got back and the player was heading towards the corner flag. But lucky still.

So we got to half time at 1-0 but then, as at Exeter last week, the 2nd half was dreadful.

Oxford had all the ball and we had no control. Just hopeless punts out of defence.

Suddenly we got our only chance of the 2nd half when Dempsey got space in the box but terribly shot over. A bad miss.

After that we just hung on and hung on. And somehow we did it.



After all my disappointment above, we have to be delighted with a win, particularly with a defeat for Peterborough and the concession of a 95th penalty for a draw for Derby.



If you play badly and win, it is a good sign but we desperately need to find form quickly.



Marks:-



Trafford - 7 Some decent saves plus good catching. But a couple of moments of headlessness with the charge out of his area and also when he played the ball straight to an Oxford man in our box

Bradley - 6 Did very well to set up the goal. After that it was defending only which brought out some poor passing

Jones - 7 Desperate defending was needed. The whole back 3 struggled in the air but we held on

Williams MJ - 7 Strange position for him but I thought he did OK. Caught for pace in the Trafford “red card” incident and rightly booked for a bad foul

Johnston - 7 Probably MOM. It was hard for the back 3 because none of them can win headers so loads of blocks were necessary

John - 6 He’s not the greatest defender so when his attacking is curbed, it was a difficult match for him

Sheehan - 6 First half, he was OK but 2nd he couldn’t get into the match

Morley - 5 Disappointing. His passing was rank bad

Dempsey - 5 Another who couldn’t get into the game. Missed our only chance of the 2nd half

Charles - 7 Took his chance well and caused the Oxford some problems

Nlundulu - 5 Not for me. He started OK but could not retain the ball. The number of times the Oxford defenders took the ball from him was embarrassing

Adeboyejo - 5

Kachunga - 5

Shoretire

Thomason

Is it really a patchwork team though chip? I accept we’re missing Rico, who to be honest has had a fair amount of criticism from some quarters anyway, but wouldn’t Jones and Johnson actually be first picks to start, they would for me? We had a full midfield minus Lee who might not have started anyway and a full compliment of strikers, so was it really a patch up? certainly we’re on the bones of Central Defence but to be fair we have a full compliment of midfielders who can protect them. The problem is like today we had no cohesion and no composure just endlessly hoofing the ball away and back to Oxford to have another attack.

It was crying out for somebody in the centre to just calm things down, put their foot on the ball and hold it. We’re usually pretty good at walking, keep possession football but when under pressure we panic and just give the ball away. In fact the only time we retained possession, passed the ball and played it forward Dempsey nearly scored yet they still didn’t twig! I’m not having this down to bare bones crap, we have a big squad and that team that started today should be able to easily compete with anybody’s yet we’re complaining how badly off we are. We got out of jail today and whilst I haven’t heard his post match comments yet I’m betting Evatt bangs on about how well we’ve done with a scratch team. Rubbish and he needs to stop filling the players heads with that instead of telling them how much better than the opposition we are. If this squad is as good as IE makes it out to be then less excuses and more delivery please.

Well that didn't help with my nerves. I've not seen the game on TV but we seemed to start with MJ as a sweeper. We started well but Oxford pushed their striker one on one with MJ and caused us trouble hence Traffords near sending off. The whole team couldn't seem to get a grip of the game our midfield was nonexistent. You could see the game plan turned to don't bomb forward and protect the defence. Dion had an ice pack on his knee at the end, hence substitution. I'm off to Burton next. I think it will be more of the same. Each hard fought result allows us a bit more time to get Santos and Toal back. Football is life 👍

I agree on the Centre back issues OM but surely we’ve more than enough in midfield and up front to do better than yesterday? If we pushed forward after scoring and got another then I can see some logic in sitting back but even if you sit back try and retain the ball don’t just hoof it back to them to start another attack. The one time we did that in the second half Dempsey had a chance to kill the game which he fluffed then we just resorted to hoofing again. As for alternatives, didn’t Toure from the B Team play in a pizza game earlier in the season and looked decent so why not at least put him on the bench, or even see if we could get Senior back from Loan under the circumstances? I’d also try Jerome at CH in training to see if he could do a job there in emergency because there are many instances of Centre Forwards moving to the back successfully. Might at least be worth a try in desperate times because he doesn’t seem to be getting a chance up front? As for Burton, if we play like that on Tuesday we’ll get battered.