Kicking the bucket .E.F.L Cup 3rd round. Away to Arsenal Wed, 25th Sep. 7-45.

[TonyDomingos]

So much for being hard to beat. Not quite Huddersfield bad but not great.

It’s nowhere near Huddersfield. Nowhere near. Arsenal have world class players.

As the woman in front of me put it when the announcer read out:
Number 41 ... Declan Rice
Number 30 ... Raheem Sterling
Number 7 ... Bukoyo Saka

"Fk me! We're playing England!"

[irie Cee Bee]

I thought we gave it a good shot. We pressed and tried to play on the front foot. Will win us many games in L1 playing like this. But outclassed as expected. At PL level, the players there have pace to burn and skill to kill. We had no chance. My concern is mentally, how has this affected us for Saturday.

[TonyDomingos]

I thought we gave it a good shot. We pressed and tried to play on the front foot. Will win us many games in L1 playing like this. But outclassed as expected. At PL level, the players there have pace to burn and skill to kill. We had no chance. My concern is mentally, how has this affected us for Saturday.

Tonight's game was never remotely winnable. They were stronger, quicker, miles more skilful etc. People around me were calling for x, y or z to come on, but I couldn't see the point. It was all about taking the hit and moving on to Saturday.

I'd be surprised if this adversly affected our mentality. Arguably, it helps - Collins has scored away at Arsenal, so he might think he's due a few against far less challenging opposition. Maybe.

[Worthy4England]

So much for being hard to beat. Not quite Huddersfield bad but not great.

It’s nowhere near Huddersfield. Nowhere near. Arsenal have world class players.

As the woman in front of me put it when the announcer read out:
Number 41 ... Declan Rice
Number 30 ... Raheem Sterling
Number 7 ... Bukoyo Saka

"Fk me! We're playing England!"

They've won sod all for 60 years!

[Prufrock]

I'll tell you what, watch out for that Saka kid, he's going places.

[dave the minion]

Apropos of nothing, according to TransferMarkt (I know...), the respective values of both teams (starting XI + subs who came on) last night:

Us - £9m
Them - £671m

Given that their worth was 75 x more than ours, I'm finding it hard to be too upset at the result/scoreline.....

[officer_dibble]

Agreed, suck it up and move on. It’s a shame it’s got to the stage where you have 6 teams who can field any side using a bingo machine to pick squad numbers 1-99 and beat anyone not in the ‘big 6’ club, but there you go!

[HMX]

Watching back the highlights as I missed a fair bit of the game. How did we not get awarded that penalty? The Arsenal-at-home effect plays into it, I expect.

[Gooner Girl]

Enjoyed last night, probably more than you lot did (sorry!) Great consolation goal though - Collins showed some coolness to put that away. Very impressive number of fans for a week night game in London. Hope everyone that went had a safe journey back and didn’t get too wet.

Upgraded myself to the West Stand as tickets the same price all the lower tier. Spent a fair bit of time entertained by the elderly ladies (I assume that were season ticket holders) next to me. They looked in their 80’s and very comfortable there. The one next to me with the arsenal blanket over her lap refused to stand up for any late comers to get past (and there seemed to be lots last night) which meant everyone literally had to clamber over her lap, and her companion used her walking stick to tap on the back of anyone standing in front of her to ‘sit down’! Old person goals right there!

[boltonboris]

I was disappointed. We barely laid a glove on them. Conceded shocking goals with really poor individual mistakes.

It was like were being nice because we're fans or something. feck* get into em. We didn't claim for a quite obvious penalty because it's not nice to have a go at the ref - 40 seconds later, we're picking the ball out of our net and still nothing is said

I often think whenever we have played in games like this under Evatt, that we toss it off in order to protect our/his reputation and for the manager to show his credentials of "playing the right way" to a bigger audience, to the point we go too far the other way. Villa the other season was even worse. They were in a bad spot and we just rolled over and let them tickle our belly's

They were so naive. Played some ok stuff going forward, but you always will when you just don't like defending

[boltonboris]

I'm not for 1 second saying we should have gotten anything out of the game, but you can't defend as badly as we did, play with such a soft centre and without any physicality and say "well done boys, good try"

[Gooner Girl]

I'm not for 1 second saying we should have gotten anything out of the game, but you can't defend as badly as we did, play with such a soft centre and without any physicality and say "well done boys, good try"

It certainly did feel a very different game from back in the 90’s when you regularly used to beat us by basically being tough northerners and digging in. This Arsenal team has a bit more steel about it now (see last Sunday!) but I was quite surprised with a 16 year old in goal you didn’t try more shots from further out, and go toe to toe to try and intimidate our youngsters a bit more.

[Worthy4England]

Agree. We were well outclassed where you'd expect us to be. I really did go read a book at HT. It's not like they had to get their shorts dirty either. I think we committed, in the way you'd expect Brand Evatt to commit. We didn't even stick someone on the office junior from corners. Was like a sightseeing tour. I couldn't watch that every week, maybe I should be hoping that Evatt gets us relegated to the Bolton Sunday. I mean we have the squad well equipped from Insano's posts and we might see something other than spreadsheets on the pitch like the odd 50/50 tackle rattling in.

[TANGODANCER]

I'm not for 1 second saying we should have gotten anything out of the game, but you can't defend as badly as we did, play with such a soft centre and without any physicality and say "well done boys, good try"

Fully agree. To allow their forwards to just fly in and throw themselves at any low cross almost un challenged, says much more about our bad than Arsenal good. Their build-up play was excellent, but never five goals better than us if we'd defended well. It really is time our manager accepted that grass roots football is our level and stop trying to be Real Madrid.

I'd go as far as to say half-a-dozen teams in our league would have played better with sleeves-up rough and tough tackling. Collins must have felt as lonely as Lawrence of Arabia on a camel in the Sahara for all the help he had up front. There were flashes of intent if only Macatee had performed like a striker, a blatant penalty howler from the ref and an iffy disallowed goal that smacked of "homer", but all that remains in memory will be Arsenal 5, Bolton 1, and that's nobodies fault but our own.

[Prufrock]

Yeah it was a very weird game. On the one hand they started Saka and 8 premier league titles up front, a £100m+ midfielder, Jorginho, Callafiori. But also 4 kids.

Some stuff, hold your hands up. The second goal, that's Prem v L1, fine. But 1 and 3 particularly were awful. You just cannot ever make those mistakes. Few people at half time on Arfield saying "oh that's the difference isn't it, you get punished". I'm far from convinced shining easy clearances to unmarked midfielders on the edge of the box isn't getting punished at any level. I'd have been embarrassed if I'd done that on a Saturday.

And that Forino one. Christ. He's an arsenal fan I think. He'll be reliving that at 3am for a while.

We scored a goal (which I missed!) so yay. But all I wanted after that was for someone to snap someone. Ffs.

Says a lot for the power of Big Sam in their heads that 20 years later that's the team they pick, I suppose. But we played how Wenger wished we used to.

Summing it up, last kick of the game, a chance to finish on a high in front of the away fans. Corner finally beating the first man, stuck right on the 16 year old keeper and he catches it unchallenged in the middle of his 6 yard box. Come on now.

[officer_dibble]

Yeah. We were dream opponents for a 16 year old keeper on debut.

[BWFC_Insane]

All this is why I’ve been so fed up and then annoyed by the nonsense Evatt project we’ve had to endure for the last few years.

Being a horrible side to play against is a non negotiable. It’s a bare minimum for being Bolton Wanderers. Yes we can play a decent brand, Ricoh did, Allardyce did at times, but bottom line is we should be going away to the better sides in our league and them fearing us because they know we will give them a hard time. Especially with all the money we’ve spent and the time he’s had.

It isn’t about ‘oh we passed the ball nicely or had 60% possession’ it’s about a team full of spirit and fight and the physical ability to go and deal with good sides and win those games.

We are powderpuff and nice and the sort of team everyone goes ‘yeah wouldn’t mind playing them’. The antithesis to everything I want as a Bolton fan. Yes we’ve got nice player, good players, some very good ones for the level. But the fire and spirit and grit, and just ‘horribleness’ just isn’t there.

I think back to the semi final against Wolves, all the time. Wolves were a Graham Taylor side. They’d spent a lot and had an England international up front. Physical, big, difficult. Bolton were not that. We were a good side, with a lot of scrap and fight and battle. But we had to stand up to them over two legs and barely clung on first leg. Second leg was a horribly scrappy affair full of intimidation and really was a physical war. We stood up to it because of our character.

I can’t see an Evatt side ever doing so. Ever. And it’s why I feel so distanced from what the club is doing and what Evatt is doing. Maybe it’s just modern football, but it’s horrible to watch and makes me feel pretty much like the players aren’t worth watching at times.

[GhostoftheBok]

Some lads did themselves proud. A couple looked like they were going through the motions.

I was happy after the first half and a bit annoyed by the end.

We'll just have to win the FA Cup instead.

[Worthy4England]

Some lads did themselves proud. A couple looked like they were going through the motions.

I was happy after the first half and a bit annoyed by the end.

We'll just have to win the FA Cup instead.

Aye, leave the minor pots to teams like Arsenal.

I'm not overly critical of the players. Bit of wondering about McAtee (nice ball out to Aaron) and Arfield...Thought we were unlucky 1st half, but "a Lancashire hotpot it wasn't" and we'd always to struggle playing book club with them. They have a larger library...

[GhostoftheBok]

Arfield, at the minute, looks like he's turning up to pick up a cheque rather than to run himself into the ground for a season.

If a 35 year old comes off without really breaking a sweat then it's fair to ask questions.

One thing about Jerome is that he absolutely put himself about. Shrews is the only game where I've felt Arfield put a full shift in.

Maybe I'm being unfair, but that's how it feels.