Should I(E) stay or should I(E) go?

[GhostoftheBok]

Course it isn't.

If I add back in Pompey's long term injury list of about 10, how many points do I add onto their final tally on the same principle?

You can't express our potential upside had we not had injuries, whilst accepting the opposition's downside when they had a bus-load. (Well you can and obviously have ) But it doesn't seem like a "balanced" equation to me...

The fact Pompey massively outspent us in both windows doesn't suggest to you a possible reason for that?

Pompey's local paper wrote an article after the window about the amount they'd invested to make sure injuries didn't become a factor. Buying two of the league's top players, paying a good slice of Prem youth wages to secure an attacker Championship clubs were after and then reinforcing every point of failure they could see - like picking up a third keeper for 6 months.

That's after they spent big in the summer.

We can say "Well, Evatt was backed" - but that's only by the standards of this club as it currently stands. Compare his spending to the two that went up and it's plain as day why they coped better with injuries

If this were a conversation about a club other than Bolton people would immediately look at relative spending and say "Oh, right, that's why."

Meanwhile, we are announcing the cancellation of structural investment to continue funding the team. That's our lived reality.

Teams with lower budgets can and do compete and achieve things, but it almost always requires them avoiding an injury crisis - or at least injuries to key personnel.

[BWFC_Insane]

More excuses. Portsmouth and Derby went up because they had better managers. Evatt told us we had the best team and squad in the league, he had everything he needed. In fact he’s repeatedly told us in transfer windows he could have signed other players but didn’t because we didn’t need them.

Thats before we get onto how we flogged first team players through absolutely pointless cup games, that I said ahead of the time was a terrible idea.

Evatt needs to take accountability. We didn’t have an injury crisis when Carlisle beat us or Wigan beat us at home. There’s 6 points we simply lost because of our own mental and physical fragility.

We will have injuries next season. There will be clubs from the championship with more resources. We knew that last season Evatt kept telling us. It’s about a manager finding a way to bring a squad together that overperforms I’ve said that since we lost to Oxford. Evatt’s never done that before and I don’t trust him to do it next season.

[Worthy4England]

Course it isn't.

If I add back in Pompey's long term injury list of about 10, how many points do I add onto their final tally on the same principle?

You can't express our potential upside had we not had injuries, whilst accepting the opposition's downside when they had a bus-load. (Well you can and obviously have ) But it doesn't seem like a "balanced" equation to me...

The fact Pompey massively outspent us in both windows doesn't suggest to you a possible reason for that?

Pompey's local paper wrote an article after the window about the amount they'd invested to make sure injuries didn't become a factor. Buying two of the league's top players, paying a good slice of Prem youth wages to secure an attacker Championship clubs were after and then reinforcing every point of failure they could see - like picking up a third keeper for 6 months.

That's after they spent big in the summer.

We can say "Well, Evatt was backed" - but that's only by the standards of this club as it currently stands. Compare his spending to the two that went up and it's plain as day why they coped better with injuries

If this were a conversation about a club other than Bolton people would immediately look at relative spending and say "Oh, right, that's why."

Meanwhile, we are announcing the cancellation of structural investment to continue funding the team. That's our lived reality.

Teams with lower budgets can and do compete and achieve things, but it almost always requires them avoiding an injury crisis - or at least injuries to key personnel.

Great Answer - but that wasn't the question. The question was "would it be unreasonable to add 5 points to us because of our injuries" - to which I said the answer was "no."

[GhostoftheBok]

Well, regardless, we now know how we're doing this "further funding" of the team whilst dealing with cash-heavy structural stuff - we're just not doing the structural stuff...again.

It was "important" to get a new pitch laid (and repairs done to what was under it) about a year before FV arrived, or at least according to the ground staff at the time it was. 6 years later and that's once again "delayed" on account of not having the cash to cover it. I don't know how long past the "maximum life" of the pitch we are now (is it 3 years?), but it's not something we can just kick down the road forever.

Having an "elite" stadium is great, until you have to pay to maintain it.

£4m+ in bond cash and we can't renew the pitch. If this were any other ownership group they'd be getting ripped to bits right now.

There's a lot of focus on this being Ian's "last chance" at promotion, but it may also be FV's last go too. Where's the money coming from to keep the place going after this year?

I'm glad they're doing basic work to Lostock. Hopefully that will help avoid some of the injuries we've seen. Not looking great, though, on the whole.

[Worthy4England]

In a slightly wider context, the counter-argument to should he stay or should he go, seems to be roughly.

1) More than 2 teams likely to spend more than us.
2) More than 4 teams maybe have a higher playing budget than us.
3) We will likely have some injuries at some point.

We should therefore expect no manager to be able to "close the gap," through know-how, luck or over-performance bearing in mind he's pretty well remunerated as part of the deal to close that gap and has a top team with Markham etc. etc, so 5th (think Sharon said we were about 5th on playing budget) is what we should expect and there are no circumstances for ever jettisoning a manager, should he achieve at least that.

We could probably just draft in a really cheap one as they don't seem to be expecting them to add much value, in terms of getting us up a Division.

That's me sold on the dream! Rock on average performance.

[GhostoftheBok]

In a slightly wider context, the counter-argument to should he stay or should he go, seems to be roughly.

1) More than 2 teams likely to spend more than us.
2) More than 4 teams maybe have a higher playing budget than us.
3) We will likely have some injuries at some point.

We should therefore expect no manager to be able to "close the gap," through know-how, luck or over-performance bearing in mind he's pretty well remunerated as part of the deal to close that gap and has a top team with Markham etc. etc, so 5th (think Sharon said we were about 5th on playing budget) is what we should expect and there are no circumstances for ever jettisoning a manager, should he achieve at least that.

We could probably just draft in a really cheap one as they don't seem to be expecting them to add much value, in terms of getting us up a Division.

That's me sold on the dream! Rock on average performance.

Not really. It does mean that a manager can do a decent job and not go up.

Evatt and Markham have to overperform fairly substantially to get us up, assuming those spending radically more than us don't implode (as sometimes they do in this league). On average a club with our budgets and our injuries doesn't go up.

Evatt didn't do a terrible job last season, he did well to get to a play-off final on his budget with his injury issues. He didn't do well in the final and I personally think he could have closed the gap to Derby, so that's where the criticism comes in.

The fact we're calling for his head for narrowly missing, given we've really pushed the boat out to get our budget to 5th in a "weak and poor" League One, should have people realising how good a job he has to do to get us up there. But hey, we're Bolton Wanderers, so none of that matters.

Evatt's ability as a manager has "closed the gap" substantially since we got into this division. We have consistently finished above our position in a spending table. So if that's the mark of a good manager, he is one.

[BWFC_Insane]

The ownership group banked on being promoted by now and having the extra £8M.

The fact they appear to be scared to make a change to get us over the line is where I’d critique. Not in their resources which dwarfed Oxfords by a considerable way and in terms of investment is higher than anyone who hasn’t recently come out of the championship.

[dave the minion]

But she also pointed to the loss of Baxter/injuries as being the main reason we didn't go up, which is akin to believing the dog ate my homework (Maybe Ian didn't mention Pompey's hospital waiting list)...

On the other hand, we missed automatic promotion by a 5 points. Regardless of what Portsmouth or Derby's patient list looked like and how they coped, iys not beyond the realms of possibility to think that missing your 1st choice keeper / 1st choice centre back / 1st choice forward (plus most of his mates) for big chunks of the season might have cost us a few points......

Any club can point to excuses. The ones who don’t do well.

It’s troubling that inspite of the fact that Derby and Portsmouth being struck with considerably longer injury lists than we were, at one point Pompey had their entire first choice defence out, we want to make that excuse.

The best managers find solutions and are resilient enough to deal with it. Thats why Portsmouth and Derby went up and we didn’t and again hiding behind excuses is reflective of the mentality that I worry is now through the club like a stick of rock that means we did not.

Don't disagree with this at all.

And to be clear, my comments were meant more as explanation rather than excuse.

At the end of the day the injuries DID have an impact. I'm sure other team's injuries also had an impact, and perhaps they dealt with them better. Perhaps they had better backup? Perhaps they had better managers who could galvanise the team and grind out results? Perhaps lady luck shone on them a little brighter than us? Who knows....

Trouble is, the extent of the impact of injuries can't be measured, but at the end of the day, surely we can all agree that without the injuries we'd have gone up....
(again, explanation rather than excuse....)

[dave the minion]

More excuses. Portsmouth and Derby went up because they had better managers. Evatt told us we had the best team and squad in the league, he had everything he needed. In fact he’s repeatedly told us in transfer windows he could have signed other players but didn’t because we didn’t need them.

Thats before we get onto how we flogged first team players through absolutely pointless cup games, that I said ahead of the time was a terrible idea.

Evatt needs to take accountability. We didn’t have an injury crisis when Carlisle beat us or Wigan beat us at home. There’s 6 points we simply lost because of our own mental and physical fragility.

Evatt did tell us all that, you're absolutely right.

Just to be provocative, on an otherwise uneventful Thursday though:

But you definitely don't believe IE's claims as you think half our squad isn't good enough? So regardless of what IE said, compared to where we should have been with the playing quality you think we have, surely we over-achieved? Which is at odds with the party-line, and maybe partly down to IE's quality as a manager then??

[BWFC_Insane]

But she also pointed to the loss of Baxter/injuries as being the main reason we didn't go up, which is akin to believing the dog ate my homework (Maybe Ian didn't mention Pompey's hospital waiting list)...

On the other hand, we missed automatic promotion by a 5 points. Regardless of what Portsmouth or Derby's patient list looked like and how they coped, iys not beyond the realms of possibility to think that missing your 1st choice keeper / 1st choice centre back / 1st choice forward (plus most of his mates) for big chunks of the season might have cost us a few points......

Any club can point to excuses. The ones who don’t do well.

It’s troubling that inspite of the fact that Derby and Portsmouth being struck with considerably longer injury lists than we were, at one point Pompey had their entire first choice defence out, we want to make that excuse.

The best managers find solutions and are resilient enough to deal with it. Thats why Portsmouth and Derby went up and we didn’t and again hiding behind excuses is reflective of the mentality that I worry is now through the club like a stick of rock that means we did not.

Don't disagree with this at all.

And to be clear, my comments were meant more as explanation rather than excuse.

At the end of the day the injuries DID have an impact. I'm sure other team's injuries also had an impact, and perhaps they dealt with them better. Perhaps they had better backup? Perhaps they had better managers who could galvanise the team and grind out results? Perhaps lady luck shone on them a little brighter than us? Who knows....

Trouble is, the extent of the impact of injuries can't be measured, but at the end of the day, surely we can all agree that without the injuries we'd have gone up....
(again, explanation rather than excuse....)

I don’t think we would because we went into the play offs without injuries and bottled it. So I think take the injuries away the mental and physical fragility would have cost us as in the end it did.

But my broad concern here is Bolton Wanderers in league one is not financially sustainable. We’ve had Sharon admit that now. We can’t be run as a competitive league one side in a sustainable way. So we are now in league one with the same pressure (though it was worse for Allardyce as debt was larger) Big Sam faced when he came into the club. We can’t afford to be down here. So we financially need to get out the league. Investors might be very good people but they aren’t going to tolerate losses of £5.6M and rising year in year out so it’s only now sustainable whilst they are here and happy. The losses are going up too. So simply put we are spending beyond our means for the championship goal because Bolton wanderers is too big to survive on league one revenues. You can make an explanation or excuse for why each season we’ve failed but that won’t pay those investors back or help the club survive. I worry the whole thing is not aggressive enough and not focussed enough. Allardyce put the whole weight of it on his back and had to lose a team of stars and replace it with freebies and loans. He found a way under excruciating pressure. But I worry that the more I hear the more we are burying our heads and thinking it will ‘just happen’ it was just one of those things…..it’s a mentality that I think almost always leads to failure.

[GhostoftheBok]

Any time someone lists reasons for a failure someone else will label them excuses.

"We weren't good enough" isn't actually remotely helpful when it comes to improvement. Identifying specific failings and fixing them is.

If the team wasn't robust enough to deal with injuries then that's actually something that needs to be identified and fixed. It's not a catch-all excuse, but it does need dealing with.

The people doing to job don't have the luxury of simple moaning, they have to actually do the work of fixing it.

One of my primary criticisms of Markham and Evatt has been their willingness to take risks on players with bad injury histories, whilst also running a light squad. When we signed Baxter the question wasn't how good he was, it was always how much football he'd miss. The same goes for a number of other players.

For me they've made a bit of a rod for their own back, trying to maximise quality and taking risks on availability.

Anyone "can" get injured, we keep signing players who you have to assume "will" get injured.

It'll be interesting to see if they change that policy generally, or if (at the very least) they're able to run a squad with a depth of quality to mitigate the issue.

As to "Pompey found solutions"...yeah, their solution was to spend a lot more than us in January to make sure they could keep playing Mousinho's style of football. Genius. Derby, likewise, signed a load of lads they knew might get injured (but who had loads of quality when fit) and then signed another first team player for every one of those positions. Again, what amazing managerial excellence.

[BWFC_Insane]

More excuses. Portsmouth and Derby went up because they had better managers. Evatt told us we had the best team and squad in the league, he had everything he needed. In fact he’s repeatedly told us in transfer windows he could have signed other players but didn’t because we didn’t need them.

Thats before we get onto how we flogged first team players through absolutely pointless cup games, that I said ahead of the time was a terrible idea.

Evatt needs to take accountability. We didn’t have an injury crisis when Carlisle beat us or Wigan beat us at home. There’s 6 points we simply lost because of our own mental and physical fragility.

Evatt did tell us all that, you're absolutely right.

Just to be provocative, on an otherwise uneventful Thursday though:

But you definitely don't believe IE's claims as you think half our squad isn't good enough? So regardless of what IE said, compared to where we should have been with the playing quality you think we have, surely we over-achieved? Which is at odds with the party-line, and maybe partly down to IE's quality as a manager then??

I don’t think they are good enough to win promotion doing what Evatt wants them to do. No. I think some are considerably overrated. I also think if we had a manager who made the game simpler some would look a lot better than they do.

[Worthy4England]

Any time someone lists reasons for a failure someone else will label them excuses.

"We weren't good enough" isn't actually remotely helpful when it comes to improvement. Identifying specific failings and fixing them is.

If the team wasn't robust enough to deal with injuries then that's actually something that needs to be identified and fixed. It's not a catch-all excuse, but it does need dealing with.

The people doing to job don't have the luxury of simple moaning, they have to actually do the work of fixing it.

One of my primary criticisms of Markham and Evatt has been their willingness to take risks on players with bad injury histories, whilst also running a light squad. When we signed Baxter the question wasn't how good he was, it was always how much football he'd miss. The same goes for a number of other players.

For me they've made a bit of a rod for their own back, trying to maximise quality and taking risks on availability.

Anyone "can" get injured, we keep signing players who you have to assume "will" get injured.

It'll be interesting to see if they change that policy generally, or if (at the very least) they're able to run a squad with a depth of quality to mitigate the issue.

As to "Pompey found solutions"...yeah, their solution was to spend a lot more than us in January to make sure they could keep playing Mousinho's style of football. Genius. Derby, likewise, signed a load of lads they knew might get injured (but who had loads of quality when fit) and then signed another first team player for every one of those positions. Again, what amazing managerial excellence.

It sort of doesn't matter what we label them as.

I suspect most of us are in work, and we know and understand the outcome of "under-performance." Sure you will maybe get away with a year, with a load of extenuating circumstances and a reasonable Board. But when you have a "buck stops with me" job, you rarely get away with it for two years and even in my business, there are jobs similar to my own, where people have been jettisoned after 6 months.

We have to get results despite people ringing in with earache on deadline day, go off for other reasons because it's all got a bit tough - people not handpicked by me, people who are new and need coaching who we need to build confidence into - I have to go with what the recruitment Department give me. I'm also not going to get the biggest budget - there are teams for larger companies that have double the budget (I know, because I've worked for them). Football is a long way from unique in this regard. I hold Evatt to no greater standard.

[irie Cee Bee]

Any time someone lists reasons for a failure someone else will label them excuses.

"We weren't good enough" isn't actually remotely helpful when it comes to improvement. Identifying specific failings and fixing them is.

If the team wasn't robust enough to deal with injuries then that's actually something that needs to be identified and fixed. It's not a catch-all excuse, but it does need dealing with.

The people doing to job don't have the luxury of simple moaning, they have to actually do the work of fixing it.

One of my primary criticisms of Markham and Evatt has been their willingness to take risks on players with bad injury histories, whilst also running a light squad. When we signed Baxter the question wasn't how good he was, it was always how much football he'd miss. The same goes for a number of other players.

For me they've made a bit of a rod for their own back, trying to maximise quality and taking risks on availability.

Anyone "can" get injured, we keep signing players who you have to assume "will" get injured.

It'll be interesting to see if they change that policy generally, or if (at the very least) they're able to run a squad with a depth of quality to mitigate the issue.

As to "Pompey found solutions"...yeah, their solution was to spend a lot more than us in January to make sure they could keep playing Mousinho's style of football. Genius. Derby, likewise, signed a load of lads they knew might get injured (but who had loads of quality when fit) and then signed another first team player for every one of those positions. Again, what amazing managerial excellence.

It sort of doesn't matter what we label them as.

I suspect most of us are in work, and we know and understand the outcome of "under-performance." Sure you will maybe get away with a year, with a load of extenuating circumstances and a reasonable Board. But when you have a "buck stops with me" job, you rarely get away with it for two years and even in my business, there are jobs similar to my own, where people have been jettisoned after 6 months.

We have to get results despite people ringing in with earache on deadline day, go off for other reasons because it's all got a bit tough - people not handpicked by me, people who are new and need coaching who we need to build confidence into - I have to go with what the recruitment Department give me. I'm also not going to get the biggest budget - there are teams for larger companies that have double the budget (I know, because I've worked for them). Football is a long way from unique in this regard. I hold Evatt to no greater standard.

Exactly so. I watched Sharon interview. She has publicly backed Evatt, but things will not be the same. Evatt will be held to a higher standard. In fact, he will be micro managed - my words - based on the fact that the board will be looking at everything to ensure we get promoted. He will be held accountable.

[TANGODANCER]

Ghost commented: "Having an "elite" stadium is great, until you have to pay to maintain it. "

That's true about anything from cathedrals to kids park playgrounds. Nobody want to inherit expense, one of the main reasons investors up stakes and move on as products, venues and even staff, age and need maintenance. Moving from Burnden Park to a new purpose built super stadium could be seen as a big turning point in Bolton's fortunes and in terms of financial progress, a risky one. Dropping from The Premiership then the Championship had to have a frightening reality, and we've seen the results. Is it not about time that Bolton Council as a body had to take responsibility for the team bearing the town's name and history, to give financial support to the club as a business? They're quick enough to jump on every band-waggon that shown the least form of success, yet everything is privatised and the pubs, shops and cinemas that made us once great are fired off quicker than, (to use a popular quip) A jack-rabbit on a date. Dare I even mention Bolton Market Hall?

Granted, it's a pipe dream as only football lover will agree, yet the same applies when we're in a cup round with a chance of winning. Nothing succeeds like success. Ah well, on with the motley!. Ian Evatt for Mayor..

[GhostoftheBok]

What would "micro management" of the football department by a board of non-football people look like? How would it be remotely helpful?

Sharon spoke specifically about "Ian and Chris" being people who are extremely careful and very skilled with money. What aspect do you think she will feel she needs to control?

[BWFC_Insane]

A football manager can’t be micromanaged by an owner nor should they. I mean I don’t think Evatt should be here but he will know a lot more about running a football team than Sharon will or any of the board.

I don’t think micromanagement answers anything or is practical.

Simply what needs to happen is a complete and total results focus. If we lose games like last season or fail to achieve the wins needed we need to be right on top of it. Evatt has to be accountable. Lose a game irrespective of the performance is the same result - 0 points. Everything has to be tuned to a results business. And if a result doesn’t happen if we bottle significant games then we need to hold Evatt accountable and the board ask questions. Not just write it off as ‘well we were unlucky’. The judge of football is results and results only.

[irie Cee Bee]

Clearly the Board aren't coaches, but as in any business, if things go well, they dont get involved. If things are not going well, they will ask a lot of questions and demand answers for a fix.

There will be a lot more questions asked next season than last season if things are going south. Last season they would not interfare and leave Evatt to sort it out. Next season they wont leave Evatt to sort it out.

Anyway, enough of this. I really do want Evatt to do well, so I hope he has learned some lessons which he will apply to take us up.

[Worthy4England]

What would "micro management" of the football department by a board of non-football people look like? How would it be remotely helpful?

Sharon spoke specifically about "Ian and Chris" being people who are extremely careful and very skilled with money. What aspect do you think she will feel she needs to control?

Not a big believer in micro-management. Back or sack, so that's a no, from me. Big believer in wider achievemts, so he needs to deliver promotion. Sick of all the bubbles being blown up my ass, masqurading as some sort of Emperor's new clothes.

The big prize is apparently doing a Brentford or Luton, with an allegedly near infallible system and approach.

Spare me. The bullshitometer is due new batteries, if the best narrative is "it could be worse"

[BWFC_Insane]

^^Exactly that. Evatt is a lower league manager struggling to get a big club out of league one. The narrative around him has been unbelievably nauseating.

He’s not one of Boltons best managers. He’s nowhere near. Not close. Not on the same planet or ballpark. He’s managed us in leagues most haven’t ever sunk to.

So let’s stop the BS the over inflation of an ego that already is way out of control and treat him in the same way we would any manager fumbling about in the lower leagues.

He’s nothing special until he achieves something special. And he hasn’t. At all. Promotion from league one is not a magical Bolton wanderers achievement it’s the bare minimum.