Millwall @ The Reebok

[Hoboh]

Another couple of these in the next few weeks and we'd all better get used to life in the second tier!
Not too sure about Freedman yet tho' massive doubts are there, one thing I do know is Gartside the failiure should go this weekend, his judgement of managers is complete utter gash!

[thebish]

It wasn't very good and as other have commented, not sure the Dougie effect ever really wore in. I thought Ream was pretty poor in defence. And it's definitely worth noting that our forwards were generally pretty well marshalled by one, Mr D Shittu....Midfield was OK going forwards but ropey when they were attacking. Bogdan with an entire football pitch to land kick outs on, contrived to miss the pitch completely on a couple of occasions - so up there with our strikers.

early days some said there was a visible change - more energy and purpose, better organised and harder to beat...

let's hope Dougie has some more irons in a fire somewhere... it just feels very much like hard work being a Bolton fan... Saturdays do not begin with hope, anticipation or expectation..

[Tals-biggest-fan]

This is the problem we have and to be fair its not all Dougies fault... Owen Coyle was so built up about building a squad that works hard and fights for the ball.... Kevin Davies may work hard for the team but lets be honest... he's wank... not some one I want leading my line... If you look back to when we had Struridge and Anelka.. they were greedy players who wanted to score goals and were pretty lazy when it came to the hard work side of the game but put them in the box they were lethal... Anelka had 23 goals in 60 odd matches for us... Struridge had 8 in 12... you may think that 23 goals in 60 games isn't much but Kevin Davies has 24 goals in 100+ games and he is considered our main striker...

Ngog has career statistics of 30 goals in 171 games, Sordell has 32 in 109 and Afobe has 11 in 52... The key to our success is easy we have the players but we're missing that one thing the same thing both Sturridge and Anelka has and the same thing I bet Nat Lofthouse had back in his time... Selfishness someone who just wants the ball at him in the 18 and isn't going to look for a pass or a flick on he's just going to get the ball and hit it at goal..

I mean look at Adam le Fondre for Reading played in every division and has scored 138 in 343 and thats because when you put him in the box he's got one thing on his mind.

[bobo the clown]

Poor. Very, very poor.

When Freedman subbed CYL for Afobe .... well .... how can I say this .... it said to me that Freedman is as clueless right now as the previous guy was. I suppose there remains some hope, which Coyle had long lost. However I'd rather he'd brought Lonergan on than Afobe. I thought he'd be going back to Arsenal's 3rd team by now.

[thebish]

10pts off the playoffs now - they are starting to look a bit further off than i had hoped they would be....

[Hoboh]

10pts off the playoffs now - they are starting to look a bit further off than i had hoped they would be....

Don't do that bish! There are those that were telling us by now under Freedman with the massive improvement he's brought to the club we would be in the thick of things by this point.

[Worthy4England]

It wasn't very good and as other have commented, not sure the Dougie effect ever really wore in. I thought Ream was pretty poor in defence. And it's definitely worth noting that our forwards were generally pretty well marshalled by one, Mr D Shittu....Midfield was OK going forwards but ropey when they were attacking. Bogdan with an entire football pitch to land kick outs on, contrived to miss the pitch completely on a couple of occasions - so up there with our strikers.

early days some said there was a visible change - more energy and purpose, better organised and harder to beat...

let's hope Dougie has some more irons in a fire somewhere... it just feels very much like hard work being a Bolton fan... Saturdays do not begin with hope, anticipation or expectation..

Well there was, for a couple of games. The defence looked tighter. And to give some credit we've conceded 21 in 15 - with 5 in one game, so the defence is tighter. But for me, today's performance was on a par with anything I'd seen under Coyle. On balance, I'm still in the sell 'em all camp.

[thebish]

10pts off the playoffs now - they are starting to look a bit further off than i had hoped they would be....

Don't do that bish! There are those that were telling us by now under Freedman with the massive improvement he's brought to the club we would be in the thick of things by this point.

not really sure there were, Hoboh... but it doesn't stop it all being very depressing...

[Caribbean White]

For me K Davies should have been replaced early on, as it was clear that Shittu had him in his pocket all game, it was crying out for someone with a bit of mobility to break them down, Davies is not that player, Freedman for me the jury is out, at the moment no great change from the Coyle days.

[Hoboh]

10pts off the playoffs now - they are starting to look a bit further off than i had hoped they would be....

Don't do that bish! There are those that were telling us by now under Freedman with the massive improvement he's brought to the club we would be in the thick of things by this point.

not really sure there were, Hoboh... but it doesn't stop it all being very depressing...

There were the odd few but TBH I'm so fecked off with things I cannot be arsed looking for them!
Dougie Freedman is looking more and more like Megson mk11 every week that passes except he ain't hurled abuse at the fans yet.

[Hoboh]

For me K Davies should have been replaced early on, as it was clear that Shittu had him in his pocket all game, it was crying out for someone with a bit of mobility to break them down, Davies is not that player, Freedman for me the jury is out, at the moment no great change from the Coyle days.

The bloke never delivers against massive CB's that hulk that played for Fulham Haagerland or whatever always nailed him and the scousers CB's always had him in their pockets, in a scrap with equal monsters he nearly always fails to deliver. Horses for courses.

[TANGODANCER]

Differant commentators saying differant things. Jack Deardon and Phil Brown saying Ngog is MOM up to now and would be a big loss if he goes off.

Thats just tango
SKD is class and Ngog is shit

I'm relaying radio comments ffs.

Was gonna mention it a few weeks ago Dont think i'v ever heard you say a bad word about Skd You slate Ngog at every opportunity[/quote].

That's absolute bollox. I'll repeat: I'm relaying what radio commentators say. I've seen one game on a stream this season and the rest heard on radio. Only thing in my favour, I hardly ever miss the match one way or another. I have no idea who's good, bad or indifferent except by radio or those who went to the game. Have you seen N'gog being good or KD being bad, or are you just surmising? Me, I listen, repeat what's said (not for my own amusement or the pleasure of typing but for the benefit of those with no commentary). I read the media reports which are, in the main, far more unbiased than some of our own fans and that's it. I'd be quite happy to just sit back and listen to the game and not bother. I'm sure not taking any shxt about passing on a radio commentary, bet your life on that buddy.

[truewhite15]

Dominated possession, and Millwall had very few chances, but we lack the clinical side of the game. We also lack a defence that's free of the One Mistake A Game syndrome. FWIW, after the brainfart that lead to the penalty, I thought Alonso, Ream, Knight and Ricketts looked very handy, and stable.

Up front, Ngog was ineffectual. As was SKD. He won nothing against Shittu all day, and should have been taken off. Eagles was, again, shocking. He's greedy, arrogant, and a complete bottler - things that were fine to ignore when he was creating chances and putting the ball in the back of the net. But he's not. Drop him, or get rid.

Freedman is not inspiring confidence. The improvements have been marginal, at best, and todays substitution was completely baffling. It should have been Ngog or Eagles to come off, if Afobe had to come on, especially seeing as Chungy had actually done alright. I think that sub will have shaken a lot of people's faith in Freedman.

[officer_dibble]

Id be happy to hit 50 points and see what we can change int summer

unless we go down this seasons a write off

[norm the jedi]

Another couple of these in the next few weeks and we'd all better get used to life in the second tier!

And that could be for the best.. escape the ridiculous pre season hype of automatic favouritism based on previous prem history..
shed the players who despite being highly paid have shown themselves not good enough since wembley.. add in a few signings and allow the new manager to build his team and get his system and ideas in place and develop the mindset necessary to scrap your way to compete and put ourselves in a position to get out of this division... up to now he's largely been playing with another blokes deck... could be that the squad we've had all year just isn't up to much whoever sits in the dug out.?
May be we'll just have to take the unpopular long term view... and wait and see...

[Hoboh]

Differant commentators saying differant things. Jack Deardon and Phil Brown saying Ngog is MOM up to now and would be a big loss if he goes off.

Thats just tango
SKD is class and Ngog is shit

I'm relaying radio comments ffs.

Was gonna mention it a few weeks ago Dont think i'v ever heard you say a bad word about Skd You slate Ngog at every opportunity

.

That's absolute bollox. I'll repeat: I'm relaying what radio commentators say. I've seen one game on a stream this season and the rest heard on radio. Only thing in my favour, I hardly ever miss the match one way or another. I have no idea who's good, bad or indifferent except by radio or those who went to the game. Have you seen N'gog being good or KD being bad, or are you just surmising? Me, I listen, repeat what's said (not for my own amusement or the pleasure of typing but for the benefit of those with no commentary). I read the media reports which are, in the main, far more unbiased than some of our own fans and that's it. I'd be quite happy to just sit back and listen to the game and not bother. I'm sure not taking any shxt about passing on a radio commentary, bet your life on that buddy.[/quote]
Don't chuck the toys out Tango theres a lot of people like reading your comments like I have just done after getting home and thawing out

[officer_dibble]

Who would people drop eagles for

[Hoboh]

Another couple of these in the next few weeks and we'd all better get used to life in the second tier!

And that could be for the best.. escape the ridiculous pre season hype of automatic favouritism based on previous prem history..
shed the players who despite being highly paid have shown themselves not good enough since wembley.. add in a few signings and allow the new manager to build his team and get his system and ideas in place and develop the mindset necessary to scrap your way to compete and put ourselves in a position to get out of this division... up to now he's largely been playing with another blokes deck... could be that the squad we've had all year just isn't up to much whoever sits in the dug out.?
May be we'll just have to take the unpopular long term view... and wait and see...

So PG fecks off with a nice payout, ED just gives up cause he's no chance ever getting his cash back, the fans just go back to dreams and memories and the Fat Controller declares that everything is rosy in the garden!

[Hoboh]

Who would people drop eagles for

I'd dump Eagles for Taylor Swift

[norm the jedi]

Another couple of these in the next few weeks and we'd all better get used to life in the second tier!

And that could be for the best.. escape the ridiculous pre season hype of automatic favouritism based on previous prem history..
shed the players who despite being highly paid have shown themselves not good enough since wembley.. add in a few signings and allow the new manager to build his team and get his system and ideas in place and develop the mindset necessary to scrap your way to compete and put ourselves in a position to get out of this division... up to now he's largely been playing with another blokes deck... could be that the squad we've had all year just isn't up to much whoever sits in the dug out.?
May be we'll just have to take the unpopular long term view... and wait and see...

So PG fecks off with a nice payout, ED just gives up cause he's no chance ever getting his cash back, the fans just go back to dreams and memories and the Fat Controller declares that everything is rosy in the garden!

No , but we could stop living the dream that with our squad and set up we should be walking this league... like it or not we have to regroup and rebuild and it's a very long way back to where we were.. if ? and it's a big if .. we are getting back it won't happen with this squad because the basic evidence of their performances over 18 months suggests that they aren't good enough.. either to stay in the prem or get back at the first attempt! Possibly on paper they should be more capable, based on their wages yadda yadda yadda... but results suggest they aren't.
In fact this team aren't any better than their last 18 months of results demonstrate ... and we aren't yet in a position to make a reasoned judgement of the new management team.. other than one based on the over hyped, dreamboat perception that the squad should be good enough as is.. it just isn't and continually expecting them to suddenly wake up and live up to their apparent potential is a recipe for disaster and frustration...
lets see where we are in 12 months...