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

[BWFC_Insane]

Evatt:

What I will say is that the majority of the injuries we are getting are muscular, and when you look at the squad it is the newer ones who have picked up these problems.

“We had the same last season in January because of the intensity that we train, it is completely different to what they are used to and you have to get them up to speed.

And this is what absolutely does my head in. We all discussed this last January. Evatt mentioned it last January as a problem. Yet he’s saying it again. Learn from your mistakes - don’t keep making them again and again.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

To be fair, in the next paragraph he says “It is more physical than it is for other teams and other clubs and it is something we are looking at, trying to manage better. Fingers crossed we can get then all back as soon as possible because they are difference makers.”

So it’s not like they’re not trying. But they’re apparently failing.

[Bertie Wooster]

I haven't got access to view this BN article, is it true that Evatt gave the players 5 days off before the Reading game ? if so no wonder they tired in the last 20 mins or so. Also from what I can gather from bits & pieces elsewhere did he also say we didn't have the funds for anymore signing ?

[Worthy4England]

Can't see either of those things in the article...

He does say we haven't got unlimited funds to keep signing players - which is somewhat different. In another article there was talk about players getting time for a "reset" after the Salford game.

Here's the full article regarding the signings...

IAN Evatt refuses to sulk over Wanderers’ mounting injury issues and stands by his view that the squad is robust enough to sustain their promotion chase.

With several players side-lined and major concerns over top scorer Dion Charles, the Bolton boss could be down to his last 18 players with first team experience for this weekend’s visit of Peterborough United.

New signings Carlos Mendes Gomes, Paris Maghoma and Zac Ashworth have joined a lengthy queue for the treatment room, which is unlikely to clear significantly before the international break next month.

Evatt has railed against suggestions that he should have legislated for such injury problems by buying more players in the transfer window.

Wanderers registered a squad of 18 senior and 21 Under-21 players with the EFL – which included those currently playing in the B Team.

The club added eight players in the summer and Evatt has stood by his recruitment decisions, arguing that some of his newer arrivals are still getting used to his training methods.

“We haven’t got unlimited funds to keep signing players,” he told The Bolton News. “We have a squad that we think is competitive, we have a budget which we think is competitive and we recruit to that budget.

“These things happen, and you will pick up injuries. Every club will deal with them at one stage or another during a season.

“What I will say is that the majority of the injuries we are getting are muscular, and when you look at the squad it is the newer ones who have picked up these problems.


“We had the same last season in January because of the intensity that we train, it is completely different to what they are used to and you have to get them up to speed.

“It is more physical than it is for other teams and other clubs and it is something we are looking at, trying to manage better. Fingers crossed we can get then all back as soon as possible because they are difference makers.”


Wanderers have recently drafted younger players like Luke Matheson, Nelson Khumbeni, Matt Tweedley and Luke Hutchinson into the first team training group, and Evatt is optimistic that they can make the step up, if required.

Jon Dadi Bodvarsson, Dan Nlundulu and Cameron Jerome will all be vying for a spot up front if Charles is unable to feature because of a shoulder injury sustained in Saturday’s defeat at Reading. Regardless of the line-up, Evatt wants to see his players be more ruthless in front of goal.

“We have got a couple of players on the fringes and that is what the B Team is for but obviously when everyone is available, we have a very good squad,” he said.

“We are a few men down at the moment, but that isn’t the reason we lost the game (at Reading), we lost that one because we didn’t take our chances. If you are going to miss those chances, especially away from home, then you are only a moment away from losing the game.”

Meanwhile, Wanderers have confirmed the date of their rescheduled away game against Shrewsbury Town.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I haven't got access to view this BN article, is it true that Evatt gave the players 5 days off before the Reading game ? if so no wonder they tired in the last 20 mins or so. Also from what I can gather from bits & pieces elsewhere did he also say we didn't have the funds for anymore signing ?

I haven’t seen the five days off mentioned anywhere. That would seem (to me) a lot when players usually view two consecutive days off as a luxury. It would also be ironic if claims we were overtraining them to inevitable injury were suddenly allied to “they had too long off” - although we may here be conflating two different problems, namely The Injuries and Rubbish Subs (although TBF injuries do weaken the bench).

He doesn’t say we’ve run out of money, he says we haven’t got unlimited funds to keep buying players - but to me that’s a false rebuttal. I didn’t expect us to buy three of four more than we did, but I did expect us to bulk out an obviously thin squad with the sort of quality loanees that we built last season on.

[Worthy4England]

I haven't got access to view this BN article, is it true that Evatt gave the players 5 days off before the Reading game ? if so no wonder they tired in the last 20 mins or so. Also from what I can gather from bits & pieces elsewhere did he also say we didn't have the funds for anymore signing ?

I haven’t seen the five days off mentioned anywhere. That would seem (to me) a lot when players usually view two consecutive days off as a luxury. It would also be ironic if claims we were overtraining them to inevitable injury were suddenly allied to “they had too long off” - although we may here be conflating two different problems, namely The Injuries and Rubbish Subs (although TBF injuries do weaken the bench).

He doesn’t say we’ve run out of money, he says we haven’t got unlimited funds to keep buying players - but to me that’s a false rebuttal. I didn’t expect us to buy three of four more than we did, but I did expect us to bulk out an obviously thin squad with the sort of quality loanees that we built last season on.

Yeah in that article (around the "days off") - here's what he says in a different article...

“Including the EFL Trophy game against Manchester United there are six games leading up to the next international break and so we have been looking at that block of fixtures and putting together a plan,” explained the Bolton boss. “It is tricky because the ones who have been away on international duty are the ones who are heavily involved in our starting XI at the moment. When you are doing match prep, ideally you want to use the week to set up a gameplan with and without the ball against Reading. It becomes really difficult when you had Josh Sheehan back today (Thursday) and Dion and Eoin Toal back Tuesday but both had been flying for 17 hours.

“Fortunately, a lot of what we do is the same. There are a few tactical tweaks in possession and out of possession, especially against the system that Reading play. But we are pretty grounded in what we do so there isn’t a lot of learning to be done for the players returning from international duty.

“The other players have had a reset after Salford and they have come back vibrant, ready to play again. When you watch the two games which took place over the break we didn’t lose out positionally so that gives the whole club a boost.

“We want to attack every game at the moment and this is a key time in the season, for me, up to that 10-game mark where the league really starts to take shape.

“We want to go for this next block of games and then see where we are at the next international break.”

Evatt has often talked about the two-points-per-game average, which if equalled or even surpassed is a fairly strong indicator of promotion form. And to hit 20 points after 10 games would require seven points from the next five league games.

[BWFC_Insane]

I haven't got access to view this BN article, is it true that Evatt gave the players 5 days off before the Reading game ? if so no wonder they tired in the last 20 mins or so. Also from what I can gather from bits & pieces elsewhere did he also say we didn't have the funds for anymore signing ?

I haven’t seen the five days off mentioned anywhere. That would seem (to me) a lot when players usually view two consecutive days off as a luxury. It would also be ironic if claims we were overtraining them to inevitable injury were suddenly allied to “they had too long off” - although we may here be conflating two different problems, namely The Injuries and Rubbish Subs (although TBF injuries do weaken the bench).

He doesn’t say we’ve run out of money, he says we haven’t got unlimited funds to keep buying players - but to me that’s a false rebuttal. I didn’t expect us to buy three of four more than we did, but I did expect us to bulk out an obviously thin squad with the sort of quality loanees that we built last season on.

Loans aren’t free though. I mean obviously I agree with you but the major issue is how the money was used.

If you consider last season we were close but lacked attacking quality, midfield goals and maybe some dominance in that area too plus needed to replace Traf and Bradley and Kieran Lee.

We took JDC as a free initially I suspect as cover for a senior RWB but he ended up being the man and only wing back signing.

Baxter for Traf. Fine.

CMG to add goals from midfield or attacking areas - also fine though still the issue of exactly where he would fit in. My guess is he won’t be a regular this season.

After that for me it’s a lot of questionable decisions.

Maghoma a loan and looks quality but also problematic in that he doesn’t really fill the Lee gap in midfield, nor add goals, nor add dominance off the ball. Nice player. Not complaining but for me is a bit of a ‘nice to have’ rather than must have.

Ashworth - Loanee who can play a few positions but doesn’t seem particularly great in any. Doesn’t look much like a wing back or centre half to me or at least one I’d fancy getting an extended run…not seen him in midfield which Iles claims he can also play.

Forrester - good prospect. Really like him. Does he help us get promoted this season? Probably not. Barring a lot of bad injuries.

Nlundulu - yeah spent our money on him. Wasn’t good enough last season and well…

JDB - we kept him on which was maybe a reasonable shout were Jerome not here…but now we’ve got two of them….

I feel we did a lot of business that hasn’t actually increased our chances of promotion. Hasn’t addressed the major issues either. I can go back to January and say similar. Vic is absolutely a handful. But as I’ve kept saying he’s no finisher and that will cost us this season. Williams is better but I’d still question his ability to play a season at wing back for us. Jerome….

I think we probably needed to focus on fewer players but with more quality and trust the B team to contribute more. I’m not convinced Carty would not be better than any of our other striker back ups…in fact….does anyone think he wouldn’t be?

[Spartan2]

Seven points from three games, not five games.

[Worthy4England]

I can hear the screams now, if our starting line up on Saturday was Vic and Conor...he'd have got lambasted - irrespective of whether Carty is up to it right now. Similar for other positions on the field.

Up front, the big decision was whether to sign N'lundulu and extend Bod or maybe go for neither (the other three are under contract so would have cost dosh to move on) - that's £300k (reported) for N'lundulu and nothing for Bod as transfer fees. Posh were allegedly asking £800k + £250k bonusable for JCH - so had we gone down that route, we probably don't have the money for CMG and Forrester as well. So for me the equation wasn't JCH vs Dan/Jerome - it was JCH vs Dan/Bod/CMG and Forrester. 1 body v 4 and we'd be looking even thinner than we do now.

Moving out of the detail for a minute. I think it's been questioned in the past, whether we have enough cash to deliver the quality Evatt needs to play this system/style of football with the squad numbers we need to have for replacements, also at sufficient quality to achieve Champo in a timeframe that doesn't get everyone bent out of shape. (noting carefully that there's been more than one system - albeit I'd argue that the different ones are all pretty much the same premise)

This year, more than maybe previous I'm questioning that. But. On the flip side. we're 3 points off top, with a game in hand v everyone except Oxford...Next two will either make it look pretty positive or pretty grim I suspect.

[Worthy4England]

Seven points from three games, not five games.

Sorry - that was part of the "quote" rather than my maths I suspect they've conflated the non-league games into the total - Blame the journo!

[Bertie Wooster]

So is the consensus that our summer transfer budget (fees) was only around £800k ? If so I have to ask again (apologies for doing so) what on earth is the £4.5M fans bond money being spent on, they didn't even use it to replace the pitch.

Again I appreciate that it was said that the money was not just for players to aid the promotion push, but was also for new scoreboards etc, training pitches, updating the corporate facilities - surely the club haven't spent £3M plus on these ?

I also appreciate that wages need to be factored in, however I would be very surprised if the current wage bill is much higher than the previous one with the players that have left (unless the new contracts offered to some players in the summer were eye opening ?)

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

As a generalised but reliable rule, strikers are the most expensive, both in terms of fee and wage. (The latter is particularly relevant given we've just seen off Champo interest in Charles by presumably sizeably increasing the contract that already ran to 2025 while extending it for a year.)

Right now - and it's still not 10 league games in, but the evidence increases by the game:–
• the decision to buy Nlundulu seems a bad one
• the decision to extend Bodvarsson to beyond his 32nd birthday seems risky or wrong
• the decision in January to give Jerome an 18-month contract seems unlikely to be repaid in goals
• the decision in January to spend a fair amount on Vic - well, the jury is still out, if less of a hanging jury than it was.

I get that we weren't going to buy a sixth (or seventh, if you include CMG) striker. But the gambles above meant we didn't have the space for a young loanee forward - the sort winningly employed last season by Plymouth (Cosgrove, Whittaker, Azaz) and Ipswich (Hirst, John-Jules).

[BWFC_Insane]

I can hear the screams now, if our starting line up on Saturday was Vic and Conor...he'd have got lambasted - irrespective of whether Carty is up to it right now. Similar for other positions on the field.

Up front, the big decision was whether to sign N'lundulu and extend Bod or maybe go for neither (the other three are under contract so would have cost dosh to move on) - that's £300k (reported) for N'lundulu and nothing for Bod as transfer fees. Posh were allegedly asking £800k + £250k bonusable for JCH - so had we gone down that route, we probably don't have the money for CMG and Forrester as well. So for me the equation wasn't JCH vs Dan/Jerome - it was JCH vs Dan/Bod/CMG and Forrester. 1 body v 4 and we'd be looking even thinner than we do now.

Moving out of the detail for a minute. I think it's been questioned in the past, whether we have enough cash to deliver the quality Evatt needs to play this system/style of football with the squad numbers we need to have for replacements, also at sufficient quality to achieve Champo in a timeframe that doesn't get everyone bent out of shape. (noting carefully that there's been more than one system - albeit I'd argue that the different ones are all pretty much the same premise)

This year, more than maybe previous I'm questioning that. But. On the flip side. we're 3 points off top, with a game in hand v everyone except Oxford...Next two will either make it look pretty positive or pretty grim I suspect.

But that wasn’t the argument I was making. We have 5 strikers on the books….4 of them were signed or resigned recently.

My argument is that had we not got Jerome, JDB and Nlundulu and used that money to sign someone of more proven and reliable quality….you can see that as May or JCH or some exotic foreign signing…whatever…someone with a more demonstrable track record who isn’t 37…….and had just three senior strikers with Carty as 4th back up would we be worse off?

For me we wouldn’t be. Yes we’d be lighter overall BUT we’d have three strikers capable of the level and instead of essentially 2 and then bodies who come on and make us worse….

There are areas we probably need more cover in (wing back) as they are such specialist roles….

But up front for me the priority has to be quality over just making up the numbers,

As it stands we are pretty much reliant on Charles and Charles alone.

[The_Gun]

Where did the £300k number come from for Nlundulu? I think Iles has just said 'six figures', but I can't remember ever seeing a specific number quoted in the press.

[Worthy4England]

So is the consensus that our summer transfer budget (fees) was only around £800k ? If so I have to ask again (apologies for doing so) what on earth is the £4.5M fans bond money being spent on, they didn't even use it to replace the pitch.

Again I appreciate that it was said that the money was not just for players to aid the promotion push, but was also for new scoreboards etc, training pitches, updating the corporate facilities - surely the club haven't spent £3M plus on these ?

I also appreciate that wages need to be factored in, however I would be very surprised if the current wage bill is much higher than the previous one with the players that have left (unless the new contracts offered to some players in the summer were eye opening ?)

Pure speculation alert...

If they're paying 8.5% annual interest and a 10% Promotion bonus, then they're going to have to give back a chunk of change, each year for the next 5 - about ~£1.6m? in interest, so £380k would be due back this year, but with a much higher 5 year total.

£250k playing surfaces Lostock & Toughsheet - dunno how much of this deferred, the report that mentioned this number of official website was mid-July
£500k on hospitality and matchday suites East/West stand conference facilities...

Other items with no cost mentioned...

On the playing side, players and coaching staff will also benefit from a further upgrade to the training ground, including the creation of a new analysis and players’ meeting room to follow the first team dressing room that was installed last summer. Enhanced investment is also going into staffing, technology, analysis and the B Team and Academy set-ups. - dunno, how much...£50k/£100k/£200k???

Advertising boards and big screens? £100k?

Stadium network and connectivity - Depends what they need to replace - but this could easily be a chunk of change.

There were reported to be "additions" to the footballing and recruitment budgets, by which I'd read "more than was originally forecast"

So you could reasonably get to £2m left, if they do the above and bank the future interest payments...£2m would have maybe covered JCH on a three year contract at his reputed £6.1k a week, with an £800k upfront + £250k add-ons (reported by the Peterborough Telegraph recently)...

In terms of signings - CMG was reported to be £500k - nowt to back this up. N'lundulu £300k nowt to back this up either, Forrester was reported as a "six figure fee" - which covers all sorts of possibilities from £100k to £999k although I suspect it's nearer the former than the latter...Burnden Aces seemed to think £200k. There's another million gone....

We almost certainly improved some players salaries - thinking at least Dion and George Thomason who had interest from elsewhere - a £1k a week improvement would burn another £100k per annum...We don't know if we were paying big bucks for the two loanees we replaced with perms. That could be another chunk...

etc. etc...

[Worthy4England]

Where did the £300k number come from for Nlundulu? I think Iles has just said 'six figures', but I can't remember ever seeing a specific number quoted in the press.

I think it came from Ghosty, if I'm not mistaken as the only place I read anything...

[BWFC_Insane]

So is the consensus that our summer transfer budget (fees) was only around £800k ? If so I have to ask again (apologies for doing so) what on earth is the £4.5M fans bond money being spent on, they didn't even use it to replace the pitch.

Again I appreciate that it was said that the money was not just for players to aid the promotion push, but was also for new scoreboards etc, training pitches, updating the corporate facilities - surely the club haven't spent £3M plus on these ?

I also appreciate that wages need to be factored in, however I would be very surprised if the current wage bill is much higher than the previous one with the players that have left (unless the new contracts offered to some players in the summer were eye opening ?)

Pure speculation alert...

If they're paying 8.5% annual interest and a 10% Promotion bonus, then they're going to have to give back a chunk of change, each year for the next 5 - about ~£1.6m? in interest, so £380k would be due back this year, but with a much higher 5 year total.

£250k playing surfaces Lostock & Toughsheet - dunno how much of this deferred, the report that mentioned this number of official website was mid-July
£500k on hospitality and matchday suites East/West stand conference facilities...

Other items with no cost mentioned...

On the playing side, players and coaching staff will also benefit from a further upgrade to the training ground, including the creation of a new analysis and players’ meeting room to follow the first team dressing room that was installed last summer. Enhanced investment is also going into staffing, technology, analysis and the B Team and Academy set-ups. - dunno, how much...£50k/£100k/£200k???

Advertising boards and big screens? £100k?

Stadium network and connectivity - Depends what they need to replace - but this could easily be a chunk of change.

There were reported to be "additions" to the footballing and recruitment budgets, by which I'd read "more than was originally forecast"

So you could reasonably get to £2m left, if they do the above and bank the future interest payments...£2m would have maybe covered JCH on a three year contract at his reputed £6.1k a week, with an £800k upfront + £250k add-ons (reported by the Peterborough Telegraph recently)...

In terms of signings - CMG was reported to be £500k - nowt to back this up. N'lundulu £300k nowt to back this up either, Forrester was reported as a "six figure fee" - which covers all sorts of possibilities from £100k to £999k although I suspect it's nearer the former than the latter...Burnden Aces seemed to think £200k. There's another million gone....

We almost certainly improved some players salaries - thinking at least Dion and George Thomason who had interest from elsewhere - a £1k a week improvement would burn another £100k per annum...We don't know if we were paying big bucks for the two loanees we replaced with perms. That could be another chunk...

etc. etc...

Yeah that's all how I'd see it. Plus the fact that presumably the money is there to strengthen the squad not just in one window.....

I don't really get the idea that we've 'not spent enough' at all. Its where and how its been spent that I question. Plus DSB's point that we left ourselves short rather than maybe taking on more loanees.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

My argument is that had we not got Jerome, JDB and Nlundulu and used that money to sign someone of more proven and reliable quality….you can see that as May or JCH or some exotic foreign signing…whatever…someone with a more demonstrable track record who isn’t 37…….and had just three senior strikers with Carty as 4th back up would we be worse off?

For me we wouldn’t be. Yes we’d be lighter overall BUT we’d have three strikers capable of the level and instead of essentially 2 and then bodies who come on and make us worse….

There are areas we probably need more cover in (wing back) as they are such specialist roles…. But up front for me the priority has to be quality over just making up the numbers, As it stands we are pretty much reliant on Charles and Charles alone.

Where did the £300k number come from for Nlundulu? I think Iles has just said 'six figures', but I can't remember ever seeing a specific number quoted in the press.

Iles this morning is saying that "Wanderers declined to publicise what they spent on Forrester, Gomes and Nlundulu but it is understood that all three fees combined would not have totalled the money [Bristol] Rovers were prepared to pay for Clarke-Harris."

Finances aside, I can certainly see BWFCi's argument (if not necessarily agree with it ) that Charles + JCH + Vic + (Carty) sounds better than the underachieving rabble we have at the moment. But it's worth noting that we run our forwards ragged and sub them, so every single game we'd be chucking the kid in for at least 30 minutes - and if someone got injured....

I have complained quite enough about Evatt making the squad too thin, but up top we certainly don't lack quantity... just quality (hopefully only currently).

[Worthy4England]

I can hear the screams now, if our starting line up on Saturday was Vic and Conor...he'd have got lambasted - irrespective of whether Carty is up to it right now. Similar for other positions on the field.

Up front, the big decision was whether to sign N'lundulu and extend Bod or maybe go for neither (the other three are under contract so would have cost dosh to move on) - that's £300k (reported) for N'lundulu and nothing for Bod as transfer fees. Posh were allegedly asking £800k + £250k bonusable for JCH - so had we gone down that route, we probably don't have the money for CMG and Forrester as well. So for me the equation wasn't JCH vs Dan/Jerome - it was JCH vs Dan/Bod/CMG and Forrester. 1 body v 4 and we'd be looking even thinner than we do now.

Moving out of the detail for a minute. I think it's been questioned in the past, whether we have enough cash to deliver the quality Evatt needs to play this system/style of football with the squad numbers we need to have for replacements, also at sufficient quality to achieve Champo in a timeframe that doesn't get everyone bent out of shape. (noting carefully that there's been more than one system - albeit I'd argue that the different ones are all pretty much the same premise)

This year, more than maybe previous I'm questioning that. But. On the flip side. we're 3 points off top, with a game in hand v everyone except Oxford...Next two will either make it look pretty positive or pretty grim I suspect.

But that wasn’t the argument I was making. We have 5 strikers on the books….4 of them were signed or resigned recently.

My argument is that had we not got Jerome, JDB and Nlundulu and used that money to sign someone of more proven and reliable quality….you can see that as May or JCH or some exotic foreign signing…whatever…someone with a more demonstrable track record who isn’t 37…….and had just three senior strikers with Carty as 4th back up would we be worse off?

For me we wouldn’t be. Yes we’d be lighter overall BUT we’d have three strikers capable of the level and instead of essentially 2 and then bodies who come on and make us worse….

There are areas we probably need more cover in (wing back) as they are such specialist roles….

But up front for me the priority has to be quality over just making up the numbers,

As it stands we are pretty much reliant on Charles and Charles alone.

Yeah but you're conflating transfer windows and applying hindsight. I'm fairly sure most folks demanded strikers (amongst other things) in January. As we "couldn't afford to not make at least the play-offs" "complete meltdown was imminent" and we were already at "must win games" - I doubt Posh and Cheltenham would have wanted the same money in January for JCH and/or May. (We weren't likely to let Dion go for £1m in Jan, fo sho).

So he could've saved his powder in Jan. Maybe stuck with not letting Dapo go, (who we weren't really using). You'd have screamed blue murder about how he'd let our season slide away into blissful oblivion (I might have had a few words too!). At one point you said Vic is good, but cup tied so we need another for sho...so that's 2 we had to get.

When you look back at the Jan transfer thread - there were some doubts about Vic, but people were broadly supportive (albeit with some having reservations), having landed Vic and JDB not being in the injury bucket until 19th Jan, Dan and Jerome were seen as not bad "back-ups" as 4th/5th picks in most people's minds I suspect. Jerome as we understood it at the time was signed on the basis that he'd move into a coaching role...so really not seen as more than an occasional participant, methinks...

That said, I can't for the life of me but wonder why we went back for N'lundulu or extended Bod (albeit the possibility of getting rid of Bod was viewed as near heretical)

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

When you look back at the Jan transfer thread - there were some doubts about Vic, but people were broadly supportive (albeit with some having reservations), having landed Vic and JDB not being in the injury bucket until 19th Jan, Dan and Jerome were seen as not bad "back-ups" as 4th/5th picks in most people's minds I suspect. Jerome as we understood it at the time was signed on the basis that he'd move into a coaching role...so really not seen as more than an occasional participant, methinks...

That said, I can't for the life of me but wonder why we went back for N'lundulu or extended Bod (albeit the possibility of getting rid of Bod was viewed as near heretical)

Aye, interesting how Jerome was supposed to be fading out not being our first reserve. And that's because Bod has been injured/disappointing and Nlundulu has been... let's say "ineffective".

In other words, those gambles didn't work. Or at least not yet. And that leaves us fearing trouble and dropping points. Evatt's teams used to get stronger toward the end of games; now we get weaker. That's the transfer policy - not just the players signed, but the ones passed over - and the ongoing, apparently unimproving muscular-injury problems.