Semi Final Match Thread

[ChrisC]

Final word for tonight, I though for the most part we sang as loud as Stoke who had 34,000 to our 27,000 ish .. I though Stoke would be more vocal with all there talking this week about how good there fans are.

I was near half way and fraid not Chris

Fair enough, maybe it was where I was sat. My point is more that I expected more singing from them.. They sang very few times apart from the times they scored.

[HMX]

You're right from what I heard. Quiet until they were winning - not long in, admittedly. Thought we made some good noise until 3-0 down.

Peter Kay, Paddy McGuiness, Nat Lofthouse, Sam Allardyce, Amir Khan....your boys TOOK ONE HELL OF A BEATING !!!

Trying not to bite, but have some fecking respect for Lofthouse. You've just won 5-0...

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[bristol_Wanderer3]

Final word for tonight, I though for the most part we sang as loud as Stoke who had 34,000 to our 27,000 ish .. I though Stoke would be more vocal with all there talking this week about how good there fans are.

I was near half way and fraid not Chris

Yeah if you are being objective our fans were poorish. Most left early some at 3-0 (!!), we were very quiet. But it is easy to be noisy when you are leading a big occasion game and the opposition are gifting chances and goals on a plate. Probably not the best of games to make judgements on the quality of the support...

[truewhite15]

What a shite end to a personally shite week.

Back from the worst game of this season or any other half an hour ago. I have never been more humiliated. I can take 5-0 thumpings to United in the league, or to Villa, or hell, I could even take a 5-0 thumping to Stoke. But for Stoke to thump us 5-0 in an FA CUP SEMI-fecking-FINAL? That's the worst Bolton game I've ever seen. Bar none.

There was no bright spot. Nothing that you could say "oh, well, we lost, but at least such-a-body played well". They were, to a man, dire. Steinsson was never, ever in the right position all game. Robinson made poor decisions, and had no assistance from a lazy Petrov when other people's left him in the shit. Jones had both our centre backs inn his pocket.

Our midfield was woefully unbalanced - some might say completely f*cking absent. Muamba gave the ball away time after time after time, and was curiously bypassed every time Stoke threatened down the middle. Chung-Yong was completely ineffective. Elmander tried, but always ran down dead-ends.

Davies was never ever gonna win anything with our tactics against Huth. I haven't seen any of the contentious penalty decisions, and I didn't realise that there was anything to shout about, controversy -wise. It doesn't surprise me that Kev got nothing though. Klasnic - did he even turn up?

And Coyle...oh, Owen, why, oh why, of all the times to get your tactics wrong, why this one? That being said, you'd at least expect the 11 players he put out to put in 100%. They didn't.

1 of 2 things will now happen. We will either 1) lose every game until the end of the season in a post-semi hangover or 2) absolutely thrash Arsenal next week as part of the compensation to us long-suffering fans.

Bolton till I die. And if we play many more like this, that'll be sooner rather than later.

[Hoboh]

You're right from what I heard. Quiet until they were winning - not long in, admittedly. Thought we made some good noise until 3-0 down.

4-0 and that was us out no chance of stopping and apluading that shite off the pitch unless they were handing out full refunds at the end

[HMX]

You're right from what I heard. Quiet until they were winning - not long in, admittedly. Thought we made some good noise until 3-0 down.

4-0 and that was us out no chance of stopping and apluading that shite off the pitch unless they were handing out full refunds at the end

Stayed 'til the end but not long enough to clap the clowns off the pitch.

[truewhite15]

I stayed. I didn't pay obscene amounts of money to not get my 90 minutes worth out of the place. And I clapped. Not for that humiliating performance, but for the cup run up to then. Doesn't stop me wanting a refund and a written apology from each and every one of them.

[wanderers_on_tour]

I stayed. I didn't pay obscene amounts of money to not get my 90 minutes worth out of the place. And I clapped. Not for that humiliating performance, but for the cup run up to then. Doesn't stop me wanting a refund and a written apology from each and every one of them.

Thank god for common sense! I thought owen got the tactics wrong (with the benefit of hindsight ) and left us with too few players either not willing (petrov) or not able (klasnic) to defend. With holden out and davies not match fit any team owen put out today was a risk, in this case it backfired, so what did he do? He changed the team at half time. If we weren't already down 3-0 at half time, with no momentum and no confidence, i think we would have won that second half with our 11 v 11. You live, you learn, its his first full season in the job and he's got us a pretty much guaranteed top 10 finish and a trip to wembley..thats the reason i also stayed to the end and clapped the players as they came over to the fans, i can think of alot of teams who wouldn't have shown such mutual respect after losing 5-0. Of course, like everyone who follows bwfc, the result embarrases me more than it upsets me and after watching MOTD bring on Arsenal!!

[wanderers_on_tour]

shite, shite, shite, positively shite oh and did i mention shite?

The players and OC should be publicly flogged tomorrow for that shite!!!!! Not at all fooking impressed Owen really messed up there, I thought I was watching Megson's tactics for a while thats what that shite made me think thank fook I'm off this week I'll need it to recover.
I hope wenger weren't watching or we are dead and burried then. Make the fookers walk home we were shite today. Btw did I mention we were shite?

See how you feel in the morning fella, it was bad but not the end of the world. Have a look at the premier league table, that'll give your head a shake!

[COYFWM]

Disappointed!

Not sure how else i can describe today. Disappointed with our players and disappointed with the small moronic minority of our "fans"!

From which we got abuse for not complying with the "stand up and support your team" chant at 4-0 down!

Saw some pretty awful scenes after the match aswell, some of which involved fighting amongst ourselves!

Just thought we massively lacked desire today. Maybe Coyle got it a bit wrong with the tactics, selection and all the rest of that, but getting it wrong is excusable!

What isn't excusable is the lack of passion, fight and determination! We had none!

I noticed in the programme... Coyles headline was "play the match ...not the occasion". We Played the occasion! and they sh!t themselves and buckled!

Gonna have a sleep on it.... but, as it stands, i think i'm gonna be lacking the desire to get to the Reebok for the rest of the season!


Gutted!!

[Dujon]

I wrote elsewhere that I was disappointed that I was denied the opportunity to watch the match. Now I'm glad I couldn't. The BBC's overseas service kept me informed (sort of - they only gave occasional updates) and that was bad enough. At 30 minutes and down by three goals I nearly turned off the radio to get some sleep; I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Whilst it seems to have been a dire performance on our part I'm still happy with our run over all - and our league position. For our fans who took the trouble to attend Wembley (and spend the money involved in the venture) my most sincere sympathy. To Stoke fans who might visit: You deserved your win and my apologies for our lot not giving you some sort of a real football game - good luck in the final.

[irie Cee Bee]

I was not there but it was painful to watch here in Jamaica. I have never seen us play this badly. Some here have slagged OC, but the only surprise for me in the line up that OC put out was Klasnic instead of Mark Davies. I thought that against Stoke, who always seem to have KD in their back pocket when we play against them, that we would build our play on the ground through MD and Elmo who would play just behind KD in a front 2.

However, we just simply lumped it forward at any given time. Simply unbelievable. Stoke hardly broke a sweat, so easy it was for them. Robinson was unbelievable bad making some rookie mistakes that we would have slaughtered Alonso for if he did it...playing the ball aimlessly into central midfield not once, but twice aming other things. A pity as he has been so reliable for us this season.

Elmo tried hard, but had no Sturridge making the runs for him and tried to do it all himself. KD was manhandled, double and tripple teamed with the ref giving him no help. Outside of these 2, the less said about the rest, the better.

We need to put this behind us, and end the season well. Without Holden, that will be difficult, but we must not undo the good work this season. It was a good FA cup journey. Hopefully, we can go all the way next season.

[Horza]

I think the one tiny ray here is that this will pull the 'Coyle to X in the summer' stuff back to a dull roar. Our coach has a bit to learn yet.

[Carror]

To cut a long story short, Defenders were lacking proficiency in offside-trap which allowed Jones to score for their 3rd.

Too much of long balls as if someone was going to receive it which never happened and gave possesion to the stoke.

Speaking of MF an FW, Petrov might as well take a lesson how to play as a team, Muamba should have done more short passes than through passes which requires creativity that he lacks very much of, Elmander should never ever play as CMF or AMF again, Not much to say about CYL and KD since othr players rarely passed to them.(A mere assumtion :CYL could create more chances if he played the role of playmaker as usual)

A brief summary : Stoke was more lucky on their goal opportuinites and majority of Bolton players were horrible at passing and ball possessing.

[Horza]

Stoke were able to play their game to perfection, we were shattered by the first goal and never recovered composure or tempo. Our personnel issues also made this difficult but they don't explain our catastrophic collapse from '11 to '30 that effectively saw us out of the game.

[Zulus Thousand of em]

Right boys and girls - this is it! It's not a practice and we only get one shot at it. We are better than Stoke City - in every department. If we perform then we win. If we don't perform then we don't deserve to get to the final anyway. It's as simple as that.

Safe journey to one and all. Have a great day.

COME ON YOU WHITE MEN!!

... and we didn't perform. Not much more to say really.

[keveh]

I don't have any emotions about yesterday, I am just numb. I think that somebody said it earlier in this thread.

I don't feel angry or disappointed, I do feel let down, but there's just nothing there. I think it's shell shock more than anything else, of all the results I thought could have come out of yesterday that was not one of them.

How every single player didn't turn up was just unbelievable, I've never seen a team look so disinterested. I don't think you can use the occasion getting to them as any excuse as most of our team have played in big games before, if not for us then for their countries or another team. They just simply bottled it.

I'm not going to ask for a refund, I'm not going to show hate towards the team, all I want is for them to make up for this in making sure we don't let it get to us for the rest of the season. I want to see a performance and that's got to start against Arsenal where they are going to need us there behind them.

[hisroyalgingerness]

That was pretty poor, and I've had some low trips to Wembley (5 losses out of 7 trips now) but out of those you can say we tried on each occasion - even against Liverpool when we were a distant underdog.

Team selection was all wrong. Coyle proving himself to be a real striker-lover frankly. We should have kept it tight and let them wear themselves out pressing but instead Elmander got completely overwhelmed in a packed midfield, Klasnic didn't have the workrate to trouble their back line.

But add to that a woeful performance by both left-flankers, who looked like they had never met; some poor ill-composed distribution from the back and Muamba who never really got himself in the right position all game.

It just led to an awful day out. All the build up, all the excitement snuffed out within 10 mins and never once was optimism allowed to raise its head again.

Coyle said before that players should be sure they leave nothing behind on occasions like this. I think every single one left plenty back on that pitch.

[lovethesmellofnapalm]

very difficult not to knee-jerk after that but i'll try.
dont buy the criticism of Coyle - apart from possibly Wheater for Knight (who was far from the worst in a white shirt) selection seemed fine. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but Elmander seemed like the best option as CM given Davies could not have been fully match fit
not that arsed about who outsung who or who left early though i can NEVER understand leaving any game early.
just really disappointed by the 11 who started- no leadership,no taking responsiblity and ineptitude all over the pitch.
Steinsonn and Robinson unfortunately lived down to my lowest expectations. Stoke's wide players on not that much possession ripped them apart and their full backs who are as poor as ours never got tested by Petrov and Lee. Dont agree that Jones pissed on our centre halves- the difference was their creative players created ours didnt and their full backs even at 4-0 defended properly ours didn't.

[hisroyalgingerness]

The difference was mistakes. They created the 4th and 5th goals, first 3 were gifts, which points to an ill-prepared and nervous team.

The Elmander selection in particular surely cannot be defended by anyone. He was let off it against a poor West Ham but surrounded by 3 hungrier, aggressive players not willing to give him the freedom of the park he couldn't do anything. His decision making in moving the ball about was poor and even if you get the first hour out of Mark Davies at least there's a chance you can still be in the game at that point and not 4 down.