A distant drum...V Plymouth Argyle Sat 27th Aug. 3-o'clock.

[Worthy4England]

Sorta doesn't matter, we've got what we've got. I don't think early doors we've look great and some picks have been strange and some aren't playing to the level they're capable of imo. If they were performing to the level they're capable of I'd be OK with it, but not convinced they are yet.

Yeah, fine with all that. It'll pick up. We've made our start to the season harder by not freshening things up enough. Evatt just has to deal with it, but we also need to do business.

I guess where I get a bit confused is on the "trading" front. That was supposed to be generating some of the required cash, yet we've retained all our assets.

[Prufrock]

Didn’t see it. Didn’t even really keep up from afar. Pearl-clutching aside, it sounds like a decent first half that would have been a decent springboard had we not - at the risk of repeating myself - conceded a daft goal to a promotion rival.

But we did, and then didn’t score, and conceded another, and now we’ve lost two on the bounce to promotion rivals by two clear goals without scoring, and it looks like we can’t smash through that ceiling.

Am interested to see people consider switching to a back four - a thought that crossed my mind last night and a switch has been used as Evatt’s emergency button for three consecutive seasons (including switching Barrow to a back three). I’m never against tactical flexibility and it would certainly suit some of our players - Dapo and Sads could be the wide men - but I’m not sure about others. Where does Bradley play? Do we drop Jones? Who’s left-back? Are any of our centre-backs really good enough to play in a two for a top-two third-tier side?

All fair questions, most of which I think there are answers to, but centre-back is the worry. As far as I know Bradley has only ever been a right back before. We want to be at the point where good players miss out, so I have no issue with Jones on the bench of Bradley gets in. At the moment I'd rather see Geth there than Sadlier (trying to inoculate myself from Andranik syndrome). Bradley also has the "took good for the division vibe) at the moment and with how energy and quality think he could play on the right wing, especially against the stronger sides. Far more than Fossey personally who never had the brains for that and was best used attacking from deep.

Left back I think it's Iredale who looks made for it. Centre-back is tricky. Johnstone is much improved until yesterday, and I do think Iredale being at LB over John would help him. Much harder to target his lack of height. No idea if Toal is up to it. But I think Aimson-Santos would be a good combination.

On the flip side there are fundamental problems. I'll take my 352 high pressing rant as priced in now, but: While it's a small sample size, and that's two games in a row where the rub could easily have gone the other way, we haven't scored a league goal in open play other than Wycombe, and none of the vaunted front lads have scored a league goal at all.

I'd be going:

Traf

Bradley
Santos
Johnstone/Aimson
Iredale

Morley/Lee
MJ
Dempsey/Sheehan (who, injury dependent I think is a big player to get back, and Evatt will expect to include)

Sads
Charles/Bod
Dapo

[BWFC_Insane]

I think Johnston gets one centre back role purely because he’s left footed. But his lack of height in a back four is troubling. I think we’ve already seen he and Santos together struggle last season.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Pru: I can see the appeal, but even the pluses have minuses. Bradley should be able to pelt on from RB rather than RWB, but if he's having to start from 10/15yds further back every time it would naturally limit him and thus inhibit our most impressive player so far. Guess it depends how much improvement we get from including Sadlier, who (as you note with Andranik Syndrome) is fast becoming The Answer In Exile but might actually be - now hear me out here - an inconsistent winger. At the moment we don't know.

We would also be playing one fewer striker, although you could call it still playing three forwards. Given our vaunted firepower, it seems... odd – but then, not many banjos have been bothering the cattle.

Interesting that you've gone for a "6 behind two 8s" midfield - which makes sense (one fewer centre-back so we need that DM) and circumvents another problem, with the 3-4-1-2 or the 4-2-3-1: do we actually have a 10? Is Dapo too blinkered? Is Lee too old? Is Kacha too shit?

As you say though the big risk is centre-back. I haven't been fully convinced by any Santos +1 since Alex Maldini's fourth-tier Indian summer. Maybe as BWFCi says Iredale's height would cover Johnston's stature a little, but I still think Johnston's more "LCB in a three" than "CB in a two". Aimson is the closest we have to a 'repulsive' centre-back - heads it, clears it, dispossesses attackers – but I worry about our patterns of play if he's there. Jones in the middle of a back four? Never been tried AFAIK and I would again worry about height. And now even Santos, who after early lapses I've trusted as a linchpin, is starting to wobble far too badly and often. As a smaller point, in a centre-back duo he also prefers being on the right, which would put Aimson/Jones on their wrong foot and thus even further inhibit our patterns of play.

Looking at our squad and all the above, I suspect Iredale is the best partner for Santos, but that's robbing Peter to pay Paul if Declan John's not a LB. (Still think Johnston might be, but that's a retrain job.) So it comes back again to strengthening. We changed formation last January due to getting Fossey – it's an interesting alternate history where we get Bradley instead, stick with a back four and results don't improve as much as they did – so maybe just maybe the chances of a formation change depend on who we can get by Thursday.

Meantime, there's a Pizza cup game on Tuesday for standby players. Wonder if Evatt is even slightly tempted to also try his standby formation, the one that got Bolton promoted?

[BWFC_Insane]

An alternative option is to stick with the system put Dapo and Charles up top and Sadlier in behind.

Or even play Sadlier and Dapo up front.

The main thing as Ghost says is to find a way to get people who can just bang a goal in on the pitch given our paucity of goals thus far and in fairness paucity of clear chances.

[Worthy4England]

An alternative option is to stick with the system put Dapo and Charles up top and Sadlier in behind.

Or even play Sadlier and Dapo up front.

The main thing as Ghost says is to find a way to get people who can just bang a goal in on the pitch given our paucity of goals thus far and in fairness paucity of clear chances.

Just on that last bit Insano, I do wonder where if anywhere the team has been told not to pull the trigger. There seems to be a reluctance (certainly v low block) to pull the firing pin from the edge of the area a little more. Sat in N Stand, there were numerous times v Morcambe where it looked like it opened up enough to give it some wellie and even if they don't go in, you sometimes get a rebound...

[BWFC_Insane]

An alternative option is to stick with the system put Dapo and Charles up top and Sadlier in behind.

Or even play Sadlier and Dapo up front.

The main thing as Ghost says is to find a way to get people who can just bang a goal in on the pitch given our paucity of goals thus far and in fairness paucity of clear chances.

Just on that last bit Insano, I do wonder where if anywhere the team has been told not to pull the trigger. There seems to be a reluctance (certainly v low block) to pull the firing pin from the edge of the area a little more. Sat in N Stand, there were numerous times v Morcambe where it looked like it opened up enough to give it some wellie and even if they don't go in, you sometimes get a rebound...

I’m not big on sideline commentating or critique it’s irritating to listen to someone in a stand shout instructions at players who can’t hear but even I found myself wanting to scream ‘hit it’ a few times this season. Don’t think it’s instruction. We just have few players who are adept at taking that snap shot. Sadlier is one. He had two on target yesterday neither were great but those two late efforts tripled our total for the match!

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Liverpool, whom Evatt admires, certainly didn't seem averse to "having a pop" yesterday and it worked out rather well...

It would be particularly daft v a low block *not* to shoot from distance. Sure, they're stood in the way, but the less you shoot from distance the happier defenders are to sit back and let you have it. Crack one from range and they start to worry about closing you down. Ban shooting from outside the box – as the great but not infallible Mr Allardyce did - and they can legitimately join hands on the 18-yard line and laugh in your face.

[Worthy4England]

Liverpool, whom Evatt admires, certainly didn't seem averse to "having a pop" yesterday and it worked out rather well...

It would be particularly daft v a low block *not* to shoot from distance. Sure, they're stood in the way, but the less you shoot from distance the happier defenders are to sit back and let you have it. Crack one from range and they start to worry about closing you down. Ban shooting from outside the box – as the great but not infallible Mr Allardyce did - and they can legitimately join hands on the 18-yard line and laugh in your face.

Yeah might be a confidence thing rather than an "instruction" it just feels to me, sometimes, they're trying to work the perfect opening sometimes at the expense of a decent opening...

[BWFC_Insane]

Liverpool, whom Evatt admires, certainly didn't seem averse to "having a pop" yesterday and it worked out rather well...

It would be particularly daft v a low block *not* to shoot from distance. Sure, they're stood in the way, but the less you shoot from distance the happier defenders are to sit back and let you have it. Crack one from range and they start to worry about closing you down. Ban shooting from outside the box – as the great but not infallible Mr Allardyce did - and they can legitimately join hands on the 18-yard line and laugh in your face.

Once had a conversation with Allardyce where he explained how every pass reduces the probability of the ball ending up in the net. Statistically each pass can fail in some way so the more you play the less likely a goal is. Probability wise. Taking the stats out of it you also obviously give more chance for an opponent to block the eventual shot the more passes you make.

It’s something I’ve always believed in. And more I watch football more I think on average it’s true that the less touches of the ball you have the better.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Liverpool, whom Evatt admires, certainly didn't seem averse to "having a pop" yesterday and it worked out rather well...

It would be particularly daft v a low block *not* to shoot from distance. Sure, they're stood in the way, but the less you shoot from distance the happier defenders are to sit back and let you have it. Crack one from range and they start to worry about closing you down. Ban shooting from outside the box – as the great but not infallible Mr Allardyce did - and they can legitimately join hands on the 18-yard line and laugh in your face.

Once had a conversation with Allardyce where he explained how every pass reduces the probability of the ball ending up in the net. Statistically each pass can fail in some way so the more you play the less likely a goal is. Probability wise. Taking the stats out of it you also obviously give more chance for an opponent to block the eventual shot the more passes you make.

It’s something I’ve always believed in. And more I watch football more I think on average it’s true that the less touches of the ball you have the better.

But he banned shooting from outside the box. I spoke to him many times and I was always impressed by his self-belief, even when he completely changed his mind.

The stats he's talked about there sound suspiciously like Charles Reep's findings, evangelised by the FA's Charles Hughes, but later brought into serious question by modern statisticians and regarded almost universally as fallacious.

But whatever. There's loads of ways to play football; I know which I prefer to pay money to watch. I'd rather see the top flight won by Pep Guardiola than Howard Wilkinson.

[KeyserSoze]

Pretty sure this Charles Reep philosophy of football, or at least his statistical analysis that informed the long ball/fewer passes movement, has come under some question for a while now (in 'Inverting the Pyrmarid' most famously, probably?). While getting it in the proverbial mixer will bear fruit I'm not sure sticking to ideas formulated when 2-3-5 was a plausible formation and Ramsay Macdonald was in the big house holds as much weight now as it did then.

[Worthy4England]

I think it would be quite difficult to argue, that the way Allardyce set us up, didn't have us often punching above our weight..irrespective of whatever Charles Reep may or may not have done/written...

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Evatt interestingly critical of both his front and back thirds:

"The top teams in this league would play a lot worse than that and still win games. If they would have had our chances today, they would have scored four or five, simple as that. That’s the difference for me.”

“It’s difficult for [our] defenders when you’re dominating so much and you’re having very little defending to do to stay concentrated for 90 minutes, but they have to be better at it. They can’t give team a sniff and that’s being ruthless and clinical in their own way and then the final third, it’s concentration, technique, belief, all of these things.

“We have to be better at them because everybody in this stadium knows we should never lose that game today. Their coaches are saying you should never lose that game today. Everyone can see it but we have so we have to fix it and improve, simple as that.”

https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/2 ... gyle-loss/

Plus more quotes in which the manager agrees wholeheartedly with BWFCi's "thirds" theory... and maybejustmaybe hints at a formation change:

“Between boxes, we controlled the game. We completely dominated the game, but we lost the battle and we lost the moments in both boxes. We had enough chances to win four or five games and then two moments, we don’t defend well enough. If you do that, you lose football matches. We have come here, we have completely dominated and dictated the game and just been sucker punched twice.

“We fix it by defending our own box better and making sure we take our chances. You can say the keeper has made good saves, but he shouldn’t have a chance to make the saves. They should be finished clinically, job done.”

“We can't just blame the back three, four, five – whatever we play. Everyone has to take responsibility. I have been in changing rooms where defenders blame the attackers for not taking chances, and attackers blame the defenders for not keeping clean sheets. It is a vicious circle. The facts are they both need to be better. We need to take our chances and they need to defend better, it is as simple as that. If we play like that, I think we will win a lot more games than we lose."

https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/2 ... gyle-loss/

[BWFC_Insane]

Liverpool, whom Evatt admires, certainly didn't seem averse to "having a pop" yesterday and it worked out rather well...

It would be particularly daft v a low block *not* to shoot from distance. Sure, they're stood in the way, but the less you shoot from distance the happier defenders are to sit back and let you have it. Crack one from range and they start to worry about closing you down. Ban shooting from outside the box – as the great but not infallible Mr Allardyce did - and they can legitimately join hands on the 18-yard line and laugh in your face.

Once had a conversation with Allardyce where he explained how every pass reduces the probability of the ball ending up in the net. Statistically each pass can fail in some way so the more you play the less likely a goal is. Probability wise. Taking the stats out of it you also obviously give more chance for an opponent to block the eventual shot the more passes you make.

It’s something I’ve always believed in. And more I watch football more I think on average it’s true that the less touches of the ball you have the better.

But he banned shooting from outside the box. I spoke to him many times and I was always impressed by his self-belief, even when he completely changed his mind.

The stats he's talked about there sound suspiciously like Charles Reep's findings, evangelised by the FA's Charles Hughes, but later brought into serious question by modern statisticians and regarded almost universally as fallacious.

But whatever. There's loads of ways to play football; I know which I prefer to pay money to watch. I'd rather see the top flight won by Pep Guardiola than Howard Wilkinson.

He banned it for a very short time when he felt we were hitting ridiculous efforts from all over. It was symbolic and soon ended.

But anyway I’d rather watch a Guardiola side too though for my money at their best Liverpool (spit) are the best watch and are pretty direct in their play. Direct not long.

If we are honest though we’ve never come close to looking like Man City and even the much vaunted 31 pass goal wasn’t really a move that teased and probed and then upped the pace to open them up. It was a good piece of possession but the crucial moment happened in the box and was not really reliant on the move behind it.

But my point is not that we should be abandoning what we do but that we need to ensure what we do suits the players available. Charles, Baka, Dapo certainly need earlier balls and I think Bod too prefers it down the channels than the slower build ups. Most of our best moments this season have come from a break, a turnover or some relatively direct play. When we play slowly it doesn’t suit our players.

One of the major issues we have is we don’t really have a plan when we arrive in the final third. We aren’t a work it wide and get the cross in side. We lack the types to play through the middle and create really. The front players all to my eyes prefer space in front rather than playing in tight spaces. So we get into the final third the opposition retreat and deny us space and as mentioned previously we don’t take the shots on, don’t cross it and lack the guile to break a team down. Without Fosseys pace we also don’t have the thrust out wide we did. Bradley is good and offers this to an extent but it’s less dynamic in the final third.

[Harry Genshaw]

We created chances galore and had goals coming out of ears at the back end of last season. It's more or less the same players, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater after a couple of defeats. The players (still) have the ability and the manager (still) has the nous to get the best out of em. Keep the faith. We'll be reet.

[BWFC_Insane]

We created chances galore and had goals coming out of ears at the back end of last season. It's more or less the same players, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater after a couple of defeats. The players (still) have the ability and the manager (still) has the nous to get the best out of em. Keep the faith. We'll be reet.

Did we? I remember we scored goals but not sure we created loads of chances. Nor did it feel like we played brilliantly? The strikers got us results. Our best form was Fossey onwards but we definitely looked less dynamic towards the end.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

From Burton to season's end we played 15 games and had 213 efforts on goal, an average of 14.3 per game.

[BWFC_Insane]

From Burton to season's end we played 15 games and had 213 efforts on goal, an average of 14.3 per game.

That was also our season average for shots per game. With 4.9 on target per match.

What does the data look like form Crewe away till the end?

[Harry Genshaw]

From Burton to season's end we played 15 games and had 213 efforts on goal, an average of 14.3 per game.

Pretty decent I'd say. I get the disappointment from some, that we're not already running away with the league but we're still a work in progress. Last year was our first back at this level and on the back of a promotion and near extinction.

Wednesday, Pompey, Plymouth, Ipswich, Charlton, Wycombe, MK etc have all been down here as long or longer. If we finish higher than we did last year, then that'll do me but it's only August so I'll not be writing off our promotion chances just yet, or any of our players and certainly not our manager.

Stick together. We'll be reet.