Down in The Valley, something stirred. V Charlton Athletic away Sat Aug 24th 3-0 'clock.

[GhostoftheBok]

Sorry, not buying it.

And I don't think that's being unfair to Evatt...

Okay.

As I said previously, I don't think it's just about who is new and who isn't - I think it's about how much is set and how long they've had with Jones in training through preseason.

Will Mannion - Signed June 10th
Alex Mitchell - Signed June 24th
Lloyd Jones - Already there
Macauley Gillesphey - Already there
Kayne Ramsay - Already there
Gary Docherty - Signed June 5th
Conor Coventry - Already there
Karoy Anderson - Already there
Josh Edwards - Signed June 19th
Ty Campbell - Already there
Gassan Ahadme - Signed July 4th

So from the team that started against Wigan the latest addition was July 4th. He was their last addition.

That's a finalised squad, with few injury issues, consistently training together for over a month.

I'm fine with you not agreeing with me, but what I'm saying isn't inaccurate and it's incorrect to suggest it is.

Jones has largely been able to work with his full, settled squad - bar one or two - throughout preseason.

[GhostoftheBok]

This is why Evatt has broadly gone with the lads who did have a preseason, but that only partially deals with the level of disruption. You can't run full drills with 12-15 fit senior players. You can run 11 v 11s. You can't run full overloads.

It's just the reality of it.

[Bertie Wooster]

Its just excuse after excuse with Evatt, like Worthy says we had 9 starters from last season yesterday - they should all be fully up to speed with Evatt's system & style of play, they shouldn't need more time on the training pitch to gel.

How many other sides have more than 2 new players in the side, yet have started well.

[officer_dibble]

I think a lot of what ghost has said makes sense. Unfortunately for Evatt no one is giving him 1 win in 8 or whatever - I fear for the atmosphere next weekend and then the absolute certainty of Duff having his number in the next home game…

[GhostoftheBok]

Its just excuse after excuse with Evatt

It's reasons, Bertie.

It's only excuses if people are saying "...and that's why it's fine."

The Charlton performance was not fine, but there are reasons why it was easy to foresee this being a challenging start.

We should have been a lot better against Charlton and we weren't. Zero excuses.

[Worthy4England]

Sorry, not buying it.

And I don't think that's being unfair to Evatt...

Okay.

As I said previously, I don't think it's just about who is new and who isn't - I think it's about how much is set and how long they've had with Jones in training through preseason.

Will Mannion - Signed June 10th
Alex Mitchell - Signed June 24th
Lloyd Jones - Already there
Macauley Gillesphey - Already there
Kayne Ramsay - Already there
Gary Docherty - Signed June 5th
Conor Coventry - Already there
Karoy Anderson - Already there
Josh Edwards - Signed June 19th
Ty Campbell - Already there
Gassan Ahadme - Signed July 4th

So from the team that started against Wigan the latest addition was July 4th. He was their last addition.

That's a finalised squad, with few injury issues, consistently training together for over a month.

I'm fine with you not agreeing with me, but what I'm saying isn't inaccurate and it's incorrect to suggest it is.

Jones has largely been able to work with his full, settled squad - bar one or two - throughout preseason.

The XI you've picked wasn't their starting XI (which is what I picked.)

W. Mannion - new
A. Mitchell - new
L. Jones - already there
M. Gillesphey - already there
K. Ramsay - I had as new - but he was on loan at Harrogate last year for most of it, no?
G. Docherty (c) - new
C. Coventry - already there - 16 starts last year
Anderson - played 5 minutes.
Josh Edwards - didn't play was hacked down as Orient last week?
T. Campbell - already there - started 12 games last season - 20 year old - mind if your good enough you're old enough
G. Yahyai - new

T. Small - new - played the full 90
L. Berry - new - subbed off with 5 minutes left.

Did I mention they'd lost one of the leagues top scorers too? I think I might have.

Just two of our starters were new - Schon and McAtee.

I don't think I said or even suggested you'd said anything inaccurate, just that I wasn't buying it. Do we have a fully professional whopping excuses department? Because we wouldn't need to wait for the Euro's to finish, to fully recruit for that department.

[BWFC_Insane]

This is why Evatt has broadly gone with the lads who did have a preseason, but that only partially deals with the level of disruption. You can't run full drills with 12-15 fit senior players. You can run 11 v 11s. You can't run full overloads.

It's just the reality of it.

How did Allardyce manage it? How did Parky manage it? How do many many managers manage to achieve more with fewer resources?

This was a pretty calm pre season compared to many we’ve had at Bolton. You have to be able to achieve results outside of perfect conditions.

[GhostoftheBok]

I think a lot of what ghost has said makes sense. Unfortunately for Evatt no one is giving him 1 win in 8 or whatever - I fear for the atmosphere next weekend and then the absolute certainty of Duff having his number in the next home game…

If that's the case then he won't last long.

Evatt has signed a good calibre of player for very good League One money.

He has to show he can win his home games, regardless of who the opposition is.

Huddersfield is 3 weeks away. That's plenty of time. More, as you note, than many are willing to give him.

If he loses to Huddersfield it really will get tight for him. Not many lose 2 of their first 5 and go up. Plymouth did, as I recall; but not many.

[Worthy4England]

I think a lot of what ghost has said makes sense. Unfortunately for Evatt no one is giving him 1 win in 8 or whatever - I fear for the atmosphere next weekend and then the absolute certainty of Duff having his number in the next home game…

If that's the case then he won't last long.

Evatt has signed a good calibre of player for very good League One money.

He has to show he can win his home games, regardless of who the opposition is.

Huddersfield is 3 weeks away. That's plenty of time. More, as you note, than many are willing to give him.

If he loses to Huddersfield it really will get tight for him. Not many lose 2 of their first 5 and go up. Plymouth did, as I recall; but not many.

Plymouth also managed it on a lower salaries cost than we declared for the football bit, that year. £8.3m vs our £9.0....makes you wonder, dunnit?

[GhostoftheBok]

The XI you've picked wasn't their starting XI (which is what I picked.)

Like I said, I went with the Wigan 11, as that was their first league game - which is where to start if you're looking at Charlton.

And like I said to Bertie, reasons aren't excuses.

This was predictable - not just having a poor start, but where and how it would come. That makes it less alarming. If you understand why something is going wrong you can also understand how to fix it and how likely it is to get fixed.

That's because failures tend to happen for reasons - which are not excuses.

It's not a mysterious sport. Managers face realities that make life really difficult for all of them when encountered - a heavily disrupted preseason is one.

You buying it or not doesn't alter that. You might not care, that's your choice.

Just factually, we had a particularly disrupted preseason.

"I don't care" is fine.
"No we didn't" is wrong.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Plymouth is another interesting outlier, IMO. They did very well to get promoted using several key loanees - an unusual and arguably unsustainable amount. It's something we've done a bit of, but shied away from somewhat (although I expect one or two young 'uns in over the next week).

I say "unsustainable" because if you build on loanees then the lending club can pull the carpet from under you. Heading into January, Plymouth had five loanees, all of whom were key: Villa's midfield creator Finn Azaz, Norwich's productive wingback Bali Mumba, Swansea forward Morgan Whittaker, Wolves cenyre-back Nigel Lonwijk and Birmingham thug Sam Cosgrove. Only Swansea recalled their man - Whittaker had racked up 9 goals and 7 assists in 25 league games - and Plymouth heaved a sigh of relief. The other four all 38 or more appearances that successful season.

That summer, they signed Mumba and Whittaker on permanents and reloaned Azaz. And stayed up - on the last day, but they stayed up. They're on a different adventure now, like.

Anyway, none of that is to say Bolton's performance at Charlton was anything other than toilet. But Plymouth were a bit weird that season.

[GhostoftheBok]

Plymouth is another interesting outlier, IMO. They did very well to get promoted using several key loanees - an unusual and arguably unsustainable amount. It's something we've done a bit of, but shied away from somewhat (although I expect one or two young 'uns in over the next week).

I say "unsustainable" because if you build on loanees then the lending club can pull the carpet from under you. Heading into January, Plymouth had five loanees, all of whom were key: Villa's midfield creator Finn Azaz, Norwich's productive wingback Bali Mumba, Swansea forward Morgan Whittaker, Wolves cenyre-back Nigel Lonwijk and Birmingham thug Sam Cosgrove. Only Swansea recalled their man - Whittaker had racked up 9 goals and 7 assists in 25 league games - and Plymouth heaved a sigh of relief. The other four all 38 or more appearances that successful season.

That summer, they signed Mumba and Whittaker on permanents and reloaned Azaz. And stayed up - on the last day, but they stayed up. They're on a different adventure now, like.

Anyway, none of that is to say Bolton's performance at Charlton was anything other than toilet. But Plymouth were a bit weird that season.

That's all true, but it's also true Schumacher did an incredible job and if Worthy wants to say "Evatt hasn't done as good a job over a season here" he's correct. Ian hasn't. At no stage has Evatt been what he believes himself to be, "The best manager in the league"...he's just not been.

I really can't be arsed discussing every other club in League One over the past few years, so if the line is "Some have done better than us" then yes, obviously. That's why we're still in the division. We've reached "Best of the Rest" status, which nobody ever likes and which we have to go beyond this time or seek a new manager.

[Worthy4England]

I wasn't comparing Charlton to Wigan, I was comparing Charlton to us as the story seems to be, it's no surprise we were a lot worse then Charlton....

But that wasn't the contention I made either. What I said originally was "Our reasons were always pitched as much worse than the oppositions" - paraphrasing. That's the part I'm not buying. Reasons and excuses are not separated by much water, and I'm sure most of us can often find reasons - but that doesn't mean that I have to buy 'em.

Yes we had a disrupted pre-season, but yes also, our starting XI has been together a chunk longer than Charlton's. I have no idea whether their pre-season was disrupted or not, they had much more lifting to do than us on their starting XI, which was predominantly new - we managed to look like we'd hardly met, despite having 9 players in the starting XI with 750 appearances under the same manager.

Not buying it, whatever badge you want to put on it.

[Worthy4England]

Plymouth is another interesting outlier, IMO. They did very well to get promoted using several key loanees - an unusual and arguably unsustainable amount. It's something we've done a bit of, but shied away from somewhat (although I expect one or two young 'uns in over the next week).

I say "unsustainable" because if you build on loanees then the lending club can pull the carpet from under you. Heading into January, Plymouth had five loanees, all of whom were key: Villa's midfield creator Finn Azaz, Norwich's productive wingback Bali Mumba, Swansea forward Morgan Whittaker, Wolves cenyre-back Nigel Lonwijk and Birmingham thug Sam Cosgrove. Only Swansea recalled their man - Whittaker had racked up 9 goals and 7 assists in 25 league games - and Plymouth heaved a sigh of relief. The other four all 38 or more appearances that successful season.

That summer, they signed Mumba and Whittaker on permanents and reloaned Azaz. And stayed up - on the last day, but they stayed up. They're on a different adventure now, like.

Anyway, none of that is to say Bolton's performance at Charlton was anything other than toilet. But Plymouth were a bit weird that season.

Agree mate - they used a lot of loanees, was that the season we had Bradley and Traff in nets (successful) and a further raft with Shortire, Beck, Mbete - so 5 also - maybe somewhat less effective overall.

[GhostoftheBok]

We can all agree that we just have to be better.

Most people say they don't care about the League Cup (I love the cups), but if we get knocked out by Shrewsbury I guarantee a lot will suddenly care.

We cannot lose at home to Exeter. That much is obvious.

Carlisle away, again, people who "don't care" will care.

We then go into Huddersfield with the "been found out" narrative being there for all to see if we lose that one.

We'll see exactly who Evatt is this season. I wasn't impressed with him personally last season (as I voiced enough to bore everyone) with his "I'll think about my future in the summer" bullshit.

If he views these next 5 fixtures as horrible pressure, rather than relishes them as a phenomenal chance to get a run going, then I'll start browsing the B&M website for the cheap white sheets.

That doesn't mean he has to win them all, because shit happens - but he can't start to look like a drowned cat. Nor can he start talking, again, like we're lucky to have his genius here and he's some misunderstood artist.

For me, generally, he has 15 games. Unless he looks like he's being a knobhead again. I do think that impacted the players last term.

If he's around 2 PPG after 15 then I'll probably view him as "my guy" for the rest of the season.

What I will say is I think Sharon will need him to be way off to pull the trigger, so I'd expect him to be here for a bit even if it really does turn sour.

[Worthy4England]

I don't think 15 is necessarily unreasonable, but would note most were probably in agreement that 8? was more than enough for Little Sammy. Were we floundering around Christmas or March, I think it's valid to keep an open mind...

I'm pretty ambivalent towards cups this season. Sure as hell don't want us cranking out more excuses for any poor league results that our fluffy's have played 2 games in a week.

You would expect us to be in the top 6 (I would anyhow), but that wouldn't count as success for me, that's minimum expectation.

[Bertie Wooster]

I agree I doubt that SB would pull the trigger & I do hope that he turns things around quickly and gets us up in contention - however if he doesn't and the fans turn on him and if we ever get to the stage of 'Evatt out' ringing around the stadium I honestly think that he would walk, as I doubt that his ego could live with that.

[GhostoftheBok]

I don't think 15 is necessarily unreasonable, but would note most were probably in agreement that 8? was more than enough for Little Sammy. Were we floundering around Christmas or March, I think it's valid to keep an open mind...

I'm pretty ambivalent towards cups this season. Sure as hell don't want us cranking out more excuses for any poor league results that our fluffy's have played 2 games in a week.

You would expect us to be in the top 6 (I would anyhow), but that wouldn't count as success for me, that's minimum expectation.

Oh, if it looks anything like Sammy he'll have to go. 9 games and 1 win, yeah he'd have to go. That's not the line of "not good enough", though...far too low a bar.

Evatt will have to go up this season to keep the majority of fans with him. If that's via the play-offs then fine, though a minority would still want him gone if we were battling between 2nd and 3rd with a few games left.

The target has to be the title. It has to be. Evatt could do a good job and still fall short of that target, because winning titles is always phenomenally difficult at any level. The shortest he can fall is play-off promotion, though. Otherwise it's a handshake and farewell.

Some see the minimum as a procession to the title, with all others blown away by our greatness.

We're certainly not convincing anyone we'll do that at the moment. It's also completely unrealistic in what is a cutthroat division this season.

[GhostoftheBok]

I agree I doubt that SB would pull the trigger & I do hope that he turns things around quickly and gets us up in contention - however if he doesn't and the fans turn on him and if we ever get to the stage of 'Evatt out' ringing around the stadium I honestly think that he would walk, as I doubt that his ego could live with that.

All reasonable.

If he's clearly not taking us up then something will have to give.

He's only a manager. We've had loads and will have loads more.

I really hope he does it this season, but the most important thing is the club does it - with or without him.

[BWFC_Insane]

^^Sammy Lee was managing an ageing Bolton side in the premiership after Allardyce with naff all to spend. The relative same level of performance for Evatt is a lot higher than 1 in 9 in league one after large spending.