All the young Dudes.. Home to Aston Villa Under 21's.Tues 8th Oct 17-45.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Put yourself in Collins shoes - he was signed from a club who were playing him sporadically on the left of a front three, it wasn’t working out despite him being young player of the year or whatever the season before.

We sign him, he does well and we are all looking forward to him form a partnership with Charles. Starts the season in a front 3 in a shit formation. We go back to a front two and he’s benched but gets to start shit cup games. Scores a couple but isn’t getting the game time in the league in a front two with Charles which was probably what he expected he would get at the end of last season.

I don't know how well Collins has been playing - of the last three games, I've only seen the Shrewsbury first half (gee thanks) - but I'd say any player in that situation has to pull on his big-boy pants and take chances when they're given. He's been given exactly the same roll of the dice as McAtee – whose signing, one could argue, is part of his problem, but he finds himself in the same situation and seems to have decided to fight for his place. Any player who can't cope with competition can't really be expected to succeed as a professional; even if you play below your level with worse team-mates, being the big fish in the small pond, you still have opponents whose job is to get the ball off you.

Perhaps one problem is that Collins' posture is not conducive to good PR. Some players lean forwards into the battle, like Mark Patterson; others lean back looking to get away, like Dapo Afolayan. Collins is a lean-backer, but that can make players look... lazy? bottlers? unbothered? When things go badly, it's not a good look. (This is not to say he's playing well.)

[Bertie Wooster]

Put yourself in Collins shoes - he was signed from a club who were playing him sporadically on the left of a front three, it wasn’t working out despite him being young player of the year or whatever the season before.

We sign him, he does well and we are all looking forward to him form a partnership with Charles. Starts the season in a front 3 in a shit formation. We go back to a front two and he’s benched but gets to start shit cup games. Scores a couple but isn’t getting the game time in the league in a front two with Charles which was probably what he expected he would get at the end of last season.

I don't disagree Dibs, if I was him I would probably be annoyed, it's another issue of Evatt's doing and McAtee could start to go down the same route without serious game time. As a few have said we paid £2M for Collins & McAtee (a lot of money for BWFC) and both are playing bit part roles, I've no doubt that Evatt didn't tell them prior to signing that they would be behind Charles & Vic in the pecking order.

Collins was probably kicking back at Evatt last night for selecting him in a nothing game in an empty stadium against a youth team, and probably why he's not giving it 100% in league games when he's not a regular starter and coming on at 70 mins. I suspect that there are 1 or 2 other new players not best pleased with Evatt, after possibly being promised starting roles.

[Worthy4England]

I'd be stunned if Evatt (or any other manager) guaranteed a starting berth regardless of form. I mean they might use words like key part of our plans.

That said, Collins doesn't look 100% engaged, along with a few others.

[officer_dibble]

Collins has been the biggest disappointment this season in terms of drop off in performance (yes worthy he’s not a centre half and leaking goals is the problem). And he looked like a player who would rather have had the night off last night - so yeah in that respect you have to look at the player and say pull your socks up, sort your attitude out or whatever. Just flipped it round really - I’m frustrated we had the makings of an excellent partnership last season and through wacky formations and poor management we’ve not seen it yet.

[Worthy4England]

Agree Dibs. Think he's had a disappointing drop off in form. Not so, the defence, we were pretty poor at it lasy year too!

[brommers95]

This is not specific to last night as I dislike the competition and its a distraction and it must be hard getting up for a game in an empty stadium in front of 300/400 people, however Collins attitude is shocking, really poor. He's a decent player at this level and when he's on it is an asset - however so far this season he looks like he doesn't want to be here, he is so half hearted he hasn't yet got out of 1st gear yet this season apart from his Arsenal goal.

I wasn't aware that he had an attitude problem prior to signing. I know that people will deny it but it is looking like 1 or 2 players just aren't listening to Evatt anymore or are a little disgruntled about some things going on behind the scenes ?

It's quite telling that even the ultra loyal truewhite is starting to become disgruntled.

Speak to any Bristol Rovers fan and they’ll tell you that he does blow hot and cold. A superb player when he’s on it, but he doesn’t play to the best of his abilities consistently.

The recruitment team will have known this before signing him and they obviously thought we could get a bit more consistency out of him. I don’t think the constant rotation is helping him at the minute as he’s somebody that needs to be the ‘main man’ like he was at the Gas.

[TANGODANCER]

Probably best to think that some of our players have started this season like a badly tuned engine, in the pre-fuel injection days, when we used two-stroke petrol and had blocked carburetors, and couldn't afford to call out garages to change a flat tyre or clean a dirty spark plug.(There will of course be many who think "What the xxxx's he on about?" Bolton have failings, but they are our failings so all we can do is hope for improvement all round. Like that old engine, there are remedies and solutions that will evolve with time and patience. Amazing what a goal or two do can do to fire up the motors and open the throttle.

In the case of Collins and co, if they can't get a few rattled shins without sulking, they have no place at the Toughsheet. Attitude wise. Vic is better than quite a few. Pity we have such a long break before firing up again. Let's hope we spend it practising shooting.

[boltonboris]

We can criticise Evatt for a lot of things, but providing competition for places is not one of them. If Collins is not up for the fight, then that's on the player, not the manager.

If he's playing every minute of every game and not playing well, then the manager would be getting pelters for the player getting complacent, as there's no competition