Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Bare Bones....

[The_Gun]

Aye, he is a bit too old to be considered a prospect, but I think he's already shown he has a lot of positive attributes and can be a good contributor at League One level. Let's see what he can do over the last few games, but so far I've been more impressed with him than both Vic and Jerome.

[Worthy4England]

Aye, he is a bit too old to be considered a prospect, but I think he's already shown he has a lot of positive attributes and can be a good contributor at League One level. Let's see what he can do over the last few games, but so far I've been more impressed with him than both Vic and Jerome.

Maybe. What we need from the "non-starters" is probably the ability to nick a goal when we're short of one. I haven't seen too much in that department from Dan....Whereas Vic is on 3. One helped us to a 2-1 win and the other two, to 1-1 draws...Last night for a while I was asking myself "where's King Arthur when you need him, or a Baka special" - Not once did I think Dan was going to spring us a winner...

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Roughly same age as Dapo was. These are vital avenues to explore, for a club hoping to buy low and sell high. But I wouldn’t (yet?) be clamouring to sign him. As I said about Bod, with three strikers contracted next season we have one, tops two, spaces. He’s not (yet?) proved worth a slot.

[brommers95]

Some positive news on Toal and Santos to brighten up Monday morning.

[brommers95]

[officer_dibble]

fecking outstanding news re Bodvarson. Could be a real game changer off the bench in the second leg and/or final.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

If only we could revive players as easily as we can revive threads.

Ilesy has written a piece on the injuries - possibly six for this weekend, which he says would leave us on just 17 players who have first-team experience at Wanderers... including Matheson and Khumbeni on one appearance each. #thinsquad

https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/2 ... ugh-clash/

In short:
• Johnston - out for yonks
• CMG - next international break (mid Oct)
• Maghoma - int break
• Coleman - possibly early October
• Ashworth - another week
• Charles - possibly Saturday

[Worthy4England]

Jeez.

[officer_dibble]

Definitely something problematic with our training regime - new signings always break within a month or so. Would make me want a full squad, not one with 3 or 4 gaps.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I forgot - Toal out this weekend suspended

[The_Gun]

Definitely something problematic with our training regime - new signings always break within a month or so. Would make me want a full squad, not one with 3 or 4 gaps.

Do we have stats to back this up, or is it merely conjecture?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Definitely something problematic with our training regime - new signings always break within a month or so. Would make me want a full squad, not one with 3 or 4 gaps.

Do we have stats to back this up, or is it merely conjecture?

There's a chance it's confirmation bias – we remember the episodes that suit our theory (see also "ex-players always score" and "teams on winless runs beat us") - but I do think we have had a *lot* of injuries, especially muscular, in the Evatt era.

Stats would be useful but I don't think there's a reliable source. Used to be one called The Injury Room or something but might have only been top-flight. Transfermarkt has some injury info, including historical, but from experience it's not in any way comprehensive.

I know that Derby have injury issues too, but then the Kane Wilson thing suggests they may have gambled harder than us.

My squad spreadsheets for the last two seasons have a *lot* of red on them.

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Screenshot 2023-09-19 at 11.45.58.png (635.84 KiB) Viewed 1540 times

[BWFC_Insane]

I’d be interested in the number of injuries occurring during training. Again my ‘gut’ feel is we have an astronomically high number compared to anything I’ve heard of before and they are mainly muscular……see Maghoma as the latest…

Training injuries should be confined in the main to unfortunate collisions imho at least outside of early pre season.

[The_Gun]

I’d be interested in the number of injuries occurring during training. Again my ‘gut’ feel is we have an astronomically high number compared to anything I’ve heard of before and they are mainly muscular……see Maghoma as the latest…

Training injuries should be confined in the main to unfortunate collisions imho at least outside of early pre season.

Are you keeping track of the muscular injuries picked up by other club's players in training?

[BWFC_Insane]

I’d be interested in the number of injuries occurring during training. Again my ‘gut’ feel is we have an astronomically high number compared to anything I’ve heard of before and they are mainly muscular……see Maghoma as the latest…

Training injuries should be confined in the main to unfortunate collisions imho at least outside of early pre season.

Are you keeping track of the muscular injuries picked up by other club's players in training?

No but I can’t remember in my time following the club so many players getting injured outside of games….

[Worthy4England]

Evatt acknowledged there was a general problem (rather than necessarily a "first month" problem) in the Manchester Evening News in Dec 22. Also there's plenty of articles about the fact that Bradley played ~4800 minutes across last season etc.

Ian Evatt has shed light on how Bolton Wanderers have sought to minimise muscle injuires this season with pre-season conditioning proving to be a key factor in making the squad more robust.

This time 12 months ago, the Whites were going through an injury crisis during a difficult period of the campaign. Evatt had no choice but to name a bench at times with six substitutes on and with youth team players on it owing to the lack of options.

Defender Adam Senior was recalled from a loan spell at York City and started at right-back in the 1-0 loss on the road to Accrington Stanley. It was not long after that the club's season had a three-week break owing to a Covid-19 outbreak within the squad, which forced a temporary closure of their Lostock training base.

This season has been a much different story, with the Whites experiencing nowhere near the amount of injuries at the same time and, allied with the club's improved squad, has meant that stuggling to fill benches has become a thing of the past. The Bolton boss revealed the lengths the Whites have gone to behind the scenes and how this pre-season in particular which included a week in Portugal has made Bolton much more robust this campaign.

Evatt said: “We have done work behind the scenes. We’ve looked at it. Last season we had far too many hamstring and muscle injuries and we were looking at reasons why.

“Training load, are we stressing the players enough and making them robust enough. Conditioning and most of that work needs to be done in pre-season and this one really enabled us to get them more robust, to give them more work and stress them more.

“We have concentrated more on recovery as well after games and Matt and Jamie are doing great work in that department just keeping the players in one piece. Matt Barrass and the physio team as well.

“It’s a real team effort and those guys need to take huge credit for not having these injuries and making us more robust, but also our fitness in games. I do think we’re having a real impact late on in games."

Since then we signed in Jan and summer (outfield only):

Vic - Hamstring (Late Feb)
Dan (25th Jan - 2/3 weeks - Hamstring)
Cameron (15th Feb - back spasm)
Shortire (28th Jan - back spasm)
M'bete (16th April - knee injury)
JDC (Fingers crossed)
Forrester (?)
CMG (5th Sept - Hammy)
Maghoma (14th Sept? Thigh injury (I mean that's where the hamstring is, no? )
Ashworth (fingers crossed)

It seems like quite a lot, when they recently sign - although some are obviously contact injuries (Shortire for example)...

[Worthy4England]

I’d be interested in the number of injuries occurring during training. Again my ‘gut’ feel is we have an astronomically high number compared to anything I’ve heard of before and they are mainly muscular……see Maghoma as the latest…

Training injuries should be confined in the main to unfortunate collisions imho at least outside of early pre season.

Are you keeping track of the muscular injuries picked up by other club's players in training?

Maybe you could give us the stats that show we're no worse? It feels like a lot, Evatt acknowledged there was a problem - I'm not sure it's gone away...

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

ISTR the surfaces at Lostock weren't helping. Have we since spent bond money on improving them? Still getting injuries.

[Worthy4England]

ISTR the surfaces at Lostock weren't helping. Have we since spent bond money on improving them? Still getting injuries.

In addition, over £250,000 is being spent on improving the playing surfaces at the Toughsheet Community Stadium and at the Club's Lostock training ground – significantly improving the quality of pitches, particularly at Lostock.

https://www.bwfc.co.uk/news/wanderers-s ... l-underway

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

ISTR the surfaces at Lostock weren't helping. Have we since spent bond money on improving them? Still getting injuries.

In addition, over £250,000 is being spent on improving the playing surfaces at the Toughsheet Community Stadium and at the Club's Lostock training ground – significantly improving the quality of pitches, particularly at Lostock.

https://www.bwfc.co.uk/news/wanderers-s ... l-underway

Cheers. Not even winter yet!!