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

[BWFC_Insane]

I thought this time last year, Dion had the worst first touch ever!

In fairness it seems to have improved. Whether that’s merely in comparison to his colleagues or whatever I don’t know….

[Worthy4England]

I thought this time last year, Dion had the worst first touch ever!

In fairness it seems to have improved. Whether that’s merely in comparison to his colleagues or whatever I don’t know….

Well he scored plenty of league goals last season compared to most L1 strikers!

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Evatt on training injuries:
"What we did last season was look at the data to see how we could have adjusted training to make sure this kind of thing didn’t happen. We tried that but unfortunately some of the injuries we have picked up are anomalies, really, they are contact injuries or over-stretches, that can happen over the course of a football match. We have to deal with it. I genuinely don’t think any squad in this division could cope with the amount of injuries we have at the moment but I think we can."
https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/2 ... jury-list/

[Bertie Wooster]

I've just read about Dempsey almost having his nose broken by Adeboyejo this week in training, what the feck - with all the injuries prior to this week, surely Evatt should have been telling them to back off a bit.

It sounds like the training is over intensive, which saying as we are not the fittest team in the league this season and all players start to tire after 60 mins should mean that currently whatever they are doing in training isn't working, and he's not adjusted training that much.

[Worthy4England]

It's only a nose. They don't do owt with them unless you can't breathe!

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Evatt: “I don’t think we have any further injuries but there are players at the moment who are playing with issues, and having to do so because we have so many out. One or two of them could potentially have made their situation worse on Saturday, so we have a week to recover for the league game and we’ll pick a team which we think is healthy enough to win us the game tomorrow night. Hopefully we can get into the next round and then through those next three games because post-international break, all being well, we will have everyone back. That will be a huge boost, so we have to manage this next few games carefully.”

So I'd expect Charles and Dempsey, at least, rested tomorrow.

[Worthy4England]

It was lovely to get a day out and a Wembley win last year. For me, he can put the under-14's out tomorrow...(know the rules don't permit ). What's the minimum cohort he can get away with?

Would expect maybe Baxter rested too...

[Mar]

Evatt: “I don’t think we have any further injuries but there are players at the moment who are playing with issues, and having to do so because we have so many out. One or two of them could potentially have made their situation worse on Saturday, so we have a week to recover for the league game and we’ll pick a team which we think is healthy enough to win us the game tomorrow night. Hopefully we can get into the next round and then through those next three games because post-international break, all being well, we will have everyone back. That will be a huge boost, so we have to manage this next few games carefully.”

So I'd expect Charles and Dempsey, at least, rested tomorrow.

I'd be happy with Charles and Dempsey being rested. We certainly should have enough to compete against Man Utd U21's with a semi rotated squad.

I'd be looking at:

Hutchinson,
Matheson, Jones, Toal, Iredale, Ashworth
Morley, Khumbeni, Thomason
Jerome, N'lundulu

Bench: Baxter, Williams, Adeboyejo, Forrester, Dempsey, Bodvarsson, Toure (or other youth player)

The idea being that changes can be made to improve the squad going into the second half of the match. Unless Ashworth is injured, in which case another player to take his place.


I suspect Evatt will go full strength though.

[BWFC_Insane]

I think it would be for the best to go out of this cup at the group stage. As much as another day at Wembley obviously would be nice I think given our squad size we cannot maintain a cup run and a league run and league has to take all priority.

[Mar]

I think it would be for the best to go out of this cup at the group stage. As much as another day at Wembley obviously would be nice I think given our squad size we cannot maintain a cup run and a league run and league has to take all priority.

You're pulling a Megson here. Enjoy each game we play and go to win them all. Let's not roll over.

[BWFC_Insane]

I think it would be for the best to go out of this cup at the group stage. As much as another day at Wembley obviously would be nice I think given our squad size we cannot maintain a cup run and a league run and league has to take all priority.

You're pulling a Megson here. Enjoy each game we play and go to win them all. Let's not roll over.

No I'm not - we have a clear aim in the league. If we had a squad that was full the cup is a good route to try players out, get minutes into players.

As it stands we have a light squad with a lot of injuries. Winning on Tuesday would not compensate remotely for losing another first team player for a period of time.

End of the day winning this cup again is not going to change a thing - it will be irrelevant - getting promotion will not be. And that's the bottom line. We're short on players, short on quality and therefore we need to prioritise what we've got.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

It was lovely to get a day out and a Wembley win last year. For me, he can put the under-14's out tomorrow...(know the rules don't permit ). What's the minimum cohort he can get away with?

Would expect maybe Baxter rested too...

I don't think we're in great danger of breaking the rules, which are much more lenient than some folk think.

Each EFL Club shall play its Full Available Strength in and during all [EFL Trophy] Matches. ‘Full Available Strength’ means the EFL Club must include at least four Qualifying Players in the ten outfield Players named in the starting eleven on the Team Sheet.

Qualifying Player means any Player who:
• had started the immediately preceding First Team Fixture (as defined below);
• subsequently starts the immediately following First Team Fixture;
• is in the list of ten Players at the Club with the highest number of starting appearances in First Team Fixtures in the same Season;
• has made forty or more starting appearances in First Team Fixtures or international equivalents (and not limited to the same Club or Season); or
• is on standard loan from a Premier League Club or any EFL Club operating a Category One Academy.

So all we need is four 'qualifying' outfielders, and we'll presumably want to play at least two of those up front. Add in Morley who needs to tune up for Saturday and we're almost there.

The other thing to say is that it's not like we have eight kids banging on the first-team door. It would IMO be daft not to play Matheson, and maybe Khumbeni; if Ashworth's still injured we might also consider recalling LWB Max Conway for the evening (you can do that this season) from fifth-tier Rochdale, where he's been getting some minutes as sub but only one start so far. But outside that, and maybe other previous fringe players like Arran Pettifer and Matt Tweedley (both still only 19), I'm not getting the sense of a queue forming. One might suggest Conor Carty, but his team St Pat's are still mid-season (finishes early Nov) and as noted, we're not exactly short of forwards with claims to make.

To your goalkeeper point - I was thinking this very morning that if Baxter's glass shoulder went in this match it would be Very Bad News. I'd be tempted to try Hutch - we are after all facing a U21s team (who don't, by the way, face the above restrictions but do have their own - age age limits etc).

[Worthy4England]

^^ what we doing with Coleman? Thought he was backup GK..

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I'm not one for throwing games and we should try to win – but I also think we should be able to beat a U21 team with a shadow spine and a bunch of our best Bs. (Whether we do actually beat them is to be decided but we're not out if we lose tonight.)

Stockport drew with the young Rags after making nine changes.

Other U21s results thus far in the northern half:
Wrexham 1-0 Newcastle
Harrogate 2-1 Forest
Wigan 7-1 Leicester
Donny 2-0 Everton
Grimsby 2-2 City
Notts County 1-2 Wolves
Morecambe 0-3 Liverpool

so including Rags, the kids are W2 D2 L4. That was Liverpool's first win in 13 attempts, against a Morecambe side who made eight changes and then four subs at half-time. Notts County ("heavily rotated") also made four HT changes.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

^^ what we doing with Coleman? Thought he was backup GK..

[Worthy4England]

Ahh I see

[Mar]

I think it would be for the best to go out of this cup at the group stage. As much as another day at Wembley obviously would be nice I think given our squad size we cannot maintain a cup run and a league run and league has to take all priority.

You're pulling a Megson here. Enjoy each game we play and go to win them all. Let's not roll over.

No I'm not - we have a clear aim in the league. If we had a squad that was full the cup is a good route to try players out, get minutes into players.

As it stands we have a light squad with a lot of injuries. Winning on Tuesday would not compensate remotely for losing another first team player for a period of time.

End of the day winning this cup again is not going to change a thing - it will be irrelevant - getting promotion will not be. And that's the bottom line. We're short on players, short on quality and therefore we need to prioritise what we've got.

Megson / Gartside, had similar claims when we were struggling in the league. The UEFA cup is a good way to try players out and get minutes into players. Winning against Sporting would not compensate remotely for any injuries for a period of time. Dress it up slightly differently and its a similar approach, knocking yourself out of tournaments to be in the best interests of the club.


As for winning the cup being irrelevant, i'd strongly disagree. We got promoted under Parkinson, and got relegated a couple of seasons later. No-one is going to look back on that and think that was a pivotal promotion and relegation, we got into the Championship and spent two years struggling. At least with winning the cup, we've got something to look back on and think that was a great moment, regardless of what happens elsewhere. Lets not deprive ourselves of another chance of silverware just because the going got tough.

[Mar]

^^ what we doing with Coleman? Thought he was backup GK..

Long term injury right?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Barring Johnston, most of them seem to be expected back at some point in October

[BWFC_Insane]

I think it would be for the best to go out of this cup at the group stage. As much as another day at Wembley obviously would be nice I think given our squad size we cannot maintain a cup run and a league run and league has to take all priority.

You're pulling a Megson here. Enjoy each game we play and go to win them all. Let's not roll over.

No I'm not - we have a clear aim in the league. If we had a squad that was full the cup is a good route to try players out, get minutes into players.

As it stands we have a light squad with a lot of injuries. Winning on Tuesday would not compensate remotely for losing another first team player for a period of time.

End of the day winning this cup again is not going to change a thing - it will be irrelevant - getting promotion will not be. And that's the bottom line. We're short on players, short on quality and therefore we need to prioritise what we've got.

Megson / Gartside, had similar claims when we were struggling in the league. The UEFA cup is a good way to try players out and get minutes into players. Winning against Sporting would not compensate remotely for any injuries for a period of time. Dress it up slightly differently and its a similar approach, knocking yourself out of tournaments to be in the best interests of the club.


As for winning the cup being irrelevant, i'd strongly disagree. We got promoted under Parkinson, and got relegated a couple of seasons later. No-one is going to look back on that and think that was a pivotal promotion and relegation, we got into the Championship and spent two years struggling. At least with winning the cup, we've got something to look back on and think that was a great moment, regardless of what happens elsewhere. Lets not deprive ourselves of another chance of silverware just because the going got tough.

Its not remotely close to Sporting Lisbon or anything like that season. Where ultimately we stayed up, and ultimately the financial pressures the club had to stay up only now are apparent and to some extent explain the reasons people had to think like that.

But regardless the only success measure this season is promotion. Everything else is completely irrelevant - short of winning the FA Cup. And frankly that isn't happening.