Wanderers v Liverpool

[wanderers_on_tour]

apart from arsenal all our defeats have been from a solitary goal which, on paper, looks a good thing but geez it aint half heartbreaking! pretty sure owen will get the boys on there feet and i hope we can route wigan good and proper especially with n'zogbia suspended and al-habsi unavailable. hopefully we can pick up a bargain or two in the transfer window for cover and onwards and upwards

[seanworth]

All things concidered we did o.k. Had a 3rd string inexperienced defender in there, missing Holden, and to top it all off it was our third game to their second game during this break. Disappointed but nothing the lads can't come back from.

[Choppers]

davo's mind was somewhere else

With his brother-in-law I'd imagine.

[plymouth wanderer]

davo's mind was somewhere else

With his brother-in-law I'd imagine.

that's what i ment

[Choppers]

Maybe you did, but I'm sure not everyone on here has read or heard about it.

[Owen_Coyle]

Obviously 2 hard games, both away, and both unfortunately against top teams who badly needed a win, but what is worrying to me is that we have gone back to surrendering the ball far too easily. Chelsea and Liverpool are certainly not at their best currently but if we insist on treating the ball like a hot potato and booting the ball anywhere or the usual hopeful ball up to SKD, as we have often done in the last 2 games, then both teams (eventually) had the skill to hurt us.

Now I know perhaps 2 out of the 3 goals in the last 2 games may have been offside and perhaps, in that respect, we have had no luck, but I'm sure we all accept that against WBA we weren't at our best but fortunately won.

OC strives to get us playing a better passing game, and he hopefully can't be happy on how we are (not) using the ball of late?

[thebish]

OC strives to get us playing a better passing game, and he hopefully can't be happy on how we are (not) using the ball of late?

I dunno - you tell us!! are you???

[Mar]

I'm not surprised. Another Liverpool victory that could've been so much different. A last minute offside goal and a goal by a player who could've easily been sent off in the first half.

We gave a good account of ourselves and have been done in again. The Wigan game is the one we should be looking at now. No point pouting over refereeing decisions. We all know its going to happen and season on season nothing gets done about it. Might aswell look forward and prepare for the Wigan game.

[General Mannerheim]

isn't he SKDs wifes sisters husband? Fairly distant relative tbf. Not like he is SKDs wifes brother or his sisters husband? While I'm sure it must be hard for the family, i can't imagine he was thinking about him during a game?

[Gary the Enfield]

isn't he SKDs wifes sisters husband? Fairly distant relative tbf. Not like he is SKDs wifes brother or his sisters husband? While I'm sure it must be hard for the family, i can't imagine he was thinking about him during a game?

He's still his brother in law, and in a very serious condition. I'd say that'd be a mild distraction.

[thebish]

isn't he SKDs wifes sisters husband? Fairly distant relative tbf. Not like he is SKDs wifes brother or his sisters husband? While I'm sure it must be hard for the family, i can't imagine he was thinking about him during a game?

i'm not sure that the precise nature of the formal relationship or relatedness is any guide to how close you are to someone.

skd has been looking after his kids this week - it is perfectly possible they are close friends.

[SonsOfThunder]

What a shitehouse way to lose. Granted the ref let us off the hook for Davies' handball, but Liverpool had one in the box that was much more deliberate (and the player was standing, watching the ball drop down out of the sky onto his arm) and the ref decided it was a good time to make amends.

But Torres not even picking up a yellow for what should/could have been a red-card offense, not to mention crying for a penalty (or was it a FK?) after he was the one who stomped all over Alonso's calf. That and a blatantly offside goal at the death. FML.

[TANGODANCER]

Seen a few questionable decisions in my time, but a defender with one arm round KD and the other trapping his arm gets a free kick? One defender dived on Davies from a great height and completely flattened him..nothing. I was also disgusted with the amount of play-acting, death scenes, leg-trailing and wailing from Liverpool. Torres should have walked himself after his performance with Cahill and referee-bagering from he and Gerard was sick-making; but the worse thing of all is that these decisions will be looked at, commented on for the wrongs of and it won't change the result or points one iota.. Referees just don't seem to care that their decisions can cause relegation ( as our disallowed goal against Everton) huge loss of money and negation of certain players skills (as in KD who they've almost marked out of the game by awful bias).

No major decisions of the same ilk in rugby or cricket are ever made without technology. Never been an advocate of it in the past, but it's time for it. Football is rapidly getting out of hand.

[irie Cee Bee]

It was always going to be a difficult game with our injury problems, and liverpool being much the fresher of the 2 sides over the Christmas period due to their postponed fixtures.

I thought we did well and once again cruelly suffered a heartbreaking loss, but the starting players can hold their heads high. They worked hard and played well.

I was particularly interested in seeing Alonso for the first time, especially since the majority of the posters on the site who had seen him before thought he was a poor left back.

I thought he did ok. Yes he made a couple misjudgements, but he was really tested by Liverpool who attacked relentlessly down his side, especially when the superb Gerrard came on. I thought he was composed and coped with the examination with passing grades. He is not as bad as I was led to believe, and with time and experience will improve.

Petrov and Klasnic are not giving us much at the moment when they come on, and we seem to lose something when they come on. Time to try Blake who is slow now, but very skillful and intelligent. We also need a couple players during the transfer period to freshen up the squad.

[Tombwfc]

Klasnic just looks short of match practise. He was lively today when he came on and looked more dangerous than Davies or Elmander. It'll come for him.

[hisroyalgingerness]

Re Kev - I was under the impression it got resolved and the op was a success, and the papers were filling column inches. Mrs Davo was more worried than Kev, who seemed more concerned as to how he was going to keep 6 kids busy, he seemed fairly relaxed. Granted, I'm not a fly on the wall by any stretch but I think any link between his so-called distraction and the family issues is an exagerration.

[thebish]

Re Kev - I was under the impression it got resolved and the op was a success, and the papers were filling column inches. Mrs Davo was more worried than Kev, who seemed more concerned as to how he was going to keep 6 kids busy, he seemed fairly relaxed. Granted, I'm not a fly on the wall by any stretch but I think any link between his so-called distraction and the family issues is an exagerration.

i'm sure it is too. in fact - had he scored a hat-trick - someone would have said he was fired up by it and scored them for his b-in-law... etc...

[hisroyalgingerness]

Grrr, was there today and here's what I saw. I saw a Bolton team that works its socks off to press and harry the opposition high up the pitch, but then unfortunately isn't able to do anything effective with the ball once won. We still play aimless passes into space and never really exert any real pressure because of that.

We got a good goal, great time to score it, and could have had another from Zat's header.

I actually thought Alonso acquitted himself reasonably well considering, and showed some promise going forward. They did cause us a lot of problems down the flanks, but in each case it was the centre forwards who were roaming that were causing the issues - both Torres and Ngog popping up along the whole back line to cause enough confusion in defence.

I also thought Muamba had a decent game, used the ball pretty well and covered his area of the pitch pretty well. As above, the threats when they did come came from the wings.

I have to say I felt we tired badly towards the end. If passes didn't go to feet, they weren't chased; runs weren't made, people weren't tracked and mistakes were made. If I had one criticism of Coyle today it was that we kept the fresh legs of Blake on the bench and left Elmander to toil on the wing and Davo up front. Also to take Taylor off who looked one of the more livelier ones (and Rodrigo possibly), I just feel we could have freshened it differently.

The ref I thought had a decent game. Sounds like he was let down by his liner. Other refs could have dished cards out much sooner, but he kept a lid on it quite well, even with Torres' handbags with Cahill. The home supporters around me didn't like it one bit, but think overall things were quite fairly handled.

[hisroyalgingerness]

Re Kev - I was under the impression it got resolved and the op was a success, and the papers were filling column inches. Mrs Davo was more worried than Kev, who seemed more concerned as to how he was going to keep 6 kids busy, he seemed fairly relaxed. Granted, I'm not a fly on the wall by any stretch but I think any link between his so-called distraction and the family issues is an exagerration.

i'm sure it is too. in fact - had he scored a hat-trick - someone would have said he was fired up by it and scored them for his b-in-law... etc...

Hmm, still in coma apparently. So fair dos, it is possible to distract. Have to say, I didn't see much evidence of Kev being distracted by anything. Knackered if anything

[TANGODANCER]

Grrr, was there today and here's what I saw. I saw a Bolton team that works its socks off to press and harry the opposition high up the pitch, but then unfortunately isn't able to do anything effective with the ball once won. We still play aimless passes into space and never really exert any real pressure because of that.

We got a good goal, great time to score it, and could have had another from Zat's header.

I actually thought Alonso acquitted himself reasonably well considering, and showed some promise going forward. They did cause us a lot of problems down the flanks, but in each case it was the centre forwards who were roaming that were causing the issues - both Torres and Ngog popping up along the whole back line to cause enough confusion in defence.

I also thought Muamba had a decent game, used the ball pretty well and covered his area of the pitch pretty well. As above, the threats when they did come came from the wings.

I have to say I felt we tired badly towards the end. If passes didn't go to feet, they weren't chased; runs weren't made, people weren't tracked and mistakes were made. If I had one criticism of Coyle today it was that we kept the fresh legs of Blake on the bench and left Elmander to toil on the wing and Davo up front. Also to take Taylor off who looked one of the more livelier ones (and Rodrigo possibly), I just feel we could have freshened it differently.

The ref I thought had a decent game. Sounds like he was let down by his liner. Other refs could have dished cards out much sooner, but he kept a lid on it quite well, even with Torres' handbags with Cahill. The home supporters around me didn't like it one bit, but think overall things were quite fairly handled.

Apart from the officials bit, that's a a pretty fair summation. We did look jaded at the end, particularly KD. He was never going to get anything his way so maybe Blake on for him and a bit more ball on the floor. The ariel stuff wasn't that effective and Reina eats most high things in the box. Sunderland winning didn't help my mood earlier but, in retrospect, we didn't play that well today. Notice the Beeb carefully omitted the Torres incidents from MOTD.