Race to the tape: 2024's League One promotion campaign

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Sheehan generally doesn't play for Wales though, right?

A Cymru fan of my acquaintance recently described him as their reserve No.6.

[boltonboris]

Looks like Stevenage's Piergianni(?) will likely get a 3 match ban for a pretty shitty off the ball elbow into a P'boro players' face. Very typical of a Steve Evans player - Especially as they see that sort of 'physicality' as a leveller

[The_Gun]

Sheehan generally doesn't play for Wales though, right?

A Cymru fan of my acquaintance recently described him as their reserve No.6.

So he only has to travel to Cardiff and will very likely not play, so that’s ok.

If they won on Thursday would the match on Tuesday also be in Wales?

[BWFC_Insane]

Sheehan generally doesn't play for Wales though, right?

A Cymru fan of my acquaintance recently described him as their reserve No.6.

So he only has to travel to Cardiff and will very likely not play, so that’s ok.

If they won on Thursday would the match on Tuesday also be in Wales?

Yeah both in Cardiff I think. I suspect Sheehan would be ok. Jones maybe not. Of course assuming both return in one piece.

To be honest I’m not convinced Stevenage might be a game to rest Sheehan in anyway given their approach to ‘disrupting’ those types of silky players.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Looks like Stevenage's Piergianni(?) will likely get a 3 match ban for a pretty shitty off the ball elbow into a P'boro players' face. Very typical of a Steve Evans player - Especially as they see that sort of 'physicality' as a leveller

Their third game from now being us, so all good. Even if they appeal it, unlikely to drag on long enough for him to play us

To be honest I’m not convinced Stevenage might be a game to rest Sheehan in anyway given their approach to ‘disrupting’ those types of silky players.

I suspect Sheehan has more bottle than you

Of course they could injure him, but that sounds like changing our plans just in case... we need to be us.

[TANGODANCER]

To be honest I’m not convinced Stevenage might be a game to rest Sheehan in anyway given their approach to ‘disrupting’ those types of silky players.

They offered little last night until the last twenty or so. Posh pretty much walked all over them the rest.

[BWFC_Insane]

Looks like Stevenage's Piergianni(?) will likely get a 3 match ban for a pretty shitty off the ball elbow into a P'boro players' face. Very typical of a Steve Evans player - Especially as they see that sort of 'physicality' as a leveller

Their third game from now being us, so all good. Even if they appeal it, unlikely to drag on long enough for him to play us

To be honest I’m not convinced Stevenage might be a game to rest Sheehan in anyway given their approach to ‘disrupting’ those types of silky players.

I suspect Sheehan has more bottle than you

Of course they could injure him, but that sounds like changing our plans just in case... we need to be us.

It’s not just about protecting him from injury it’s about the fact that there are certain games he plays and struggles in and that leaves the whole team struggling. We’ve seen it in the last few months. Stevenage won’t be like Oxford I shouldn’t have thought.

[Worthy4England]

TBF to Insano, we're not paying him to have bottle!

[TANGODANCER]

If we're racing (to the tape) for a couple of months, we're going to be a bit knackered when we get there? Bit too soon to be sprinting yet; maybe we ( fans) should ease off a bit and conserve some energy...just saying...

[boltonboris]

It’s not just about protecting him from injury it’s about the fact that there are certain games he plays and struggles in and that leaves the whole team struggling. We’ve seen it in the last few months. Stevenage won’t be like Oxford I shouldn’t have thought.

From Sheehan? We see much less of it from him, than we do Dempsey and Thomason. Always wants the ball, always trying to make things happen.

I really don't see a case for dropping him at Stevenage just because he's a little 'un. Got bigger stones than anybody else in the team

[BWFC_Insane]

It’s not just about protecting him from injury it’s about the fact that there are certain games he plays and struggles in and that leaves the whole team struggling. We’ve seen it in the last few months. Stevenage won’t be like Oxford I shouldn’t have thought.

From Sheehan? We see much less of it from him, than we do Dempsey and Thomason. Always wants the ball, always trying to make things happen.

I really don't see a case for dropping him at Stevenage just because he's a little 'un. Got bigger stones than anybody else in the team

It’s not a case of dropping him. It’s that when teams needle him allied to a strong press he struggles and when that happens the team has struggled. There are a number of times this has happened. Got nothing to do with bravery or lack of it’s just a reality that there are times teams can knock him out of games and I believe when that happens and he’s on the pitch we start to panic.

[TANGODANCER]

From Sheehan? We see much less of it from him, than we do Dempsey and Thomason. Always wants the ball, always trying to make things happen.
I really don't see a case for dropping him at Stevenage just because he's a little 'un. Got bigger stones than anybody else in the team

We have to adopt the only fair dictum and ask " All things taken into account, Is he the best man for the job?" Nothing else matters. In Sheehan's case, yes, he is, so you just hope Ian Evatt applies that rule. He seems to be getting things right, so I'm happy to just go with him. Fat ladies are usually pretty good singers anyway.

[Mar]

Just checked the tables and calculated the top 6 performance if there was a top 6 only table.

P W D L Points
Portsmouth 6 4 2 0 14
Derby 8 3 1 4 10
Bolton 6 2 3 1 9
Peterborough 6 2 2 2 8
Barnsley 6 2 2 2 8
Stevenage 8 2 2 4 8

We're third best but that table is skewed by Derby having played two extra games. Derby's form is mixed, getting results in half, ours favours getting a result, the only loss is the Pompey away loss.

For Bolton:
Home: P4W2D2L1, points 8
Away: P2W0D1L1, points 1

That tells me two things:
1, we're doing pretty well at home but we'd like it to be better and,
2, we've not played enough away to objectively be able to compare

Home Table:
P W D L Points
Portsmouth 3 3 0 0 9
Derby 4 2 1 1 7
Bolton 4 2 2 0 8
Peterborough 2 1 0 1 3
Barnsley 4 2 1 1 7
Stevenage 3 1 2 0 7

We're on a par with the rest of the league from the looks of that, Peterborough and Stevenage's games yet to be played should skew it, but not substantially.

Away Table:
P W D L Points
Portsmouth 3 1 2 0 5
Derby 4 1 0 3 3
Bolton 2 0 1 1 1
Peterborough 4 1 2 1 5
Barnsley 2 0 1 1 1
Stevenage 5 1 0 4 3

We've not got enough info to say, but we're not trailing. We lost away to the top team and matched Barnsley. One win puts us on a par with the rest, two puts us ahead.

So, long story short, we've improved our home form against rest of the top substantially at home (8 points compared to 3, possibly 11) and we're yet to be tested properly away (1 point, compared to 8, possibility of 10).


When we compare that to last season, we fluffed our lines at home quite a bit and we were good away.
Last season in the league, Bolton:

Home: P5W1D2L2, points 3
Away: P5W2D2L1, points 8
Other: P4W1D1L2 (Lost Play Off SF, Won Cup Final)

Overall: P14 W4D5L5


The whole 'we don't deliver when it matters' comment is dismissible by the 4-0 cup final win, but the Barnsley performance in the Playoffs still irks somewhat, as is the Wigan and Pompey fluffs.


So what i'm seeing after looking at that set of results, is that we're making out our defeats are worse than they actually are compared to the rest of the league. It seems that we're just as good as the rest and that a good set of results away from home would really put us into a good position.


It FEELS as though we fluff our lines, but the results are showing that it's the case for the rest of the teams in the league aswell (Portsmouth aside).

We're as good as anyone in this league.

[boltonboris]

It’s not just about protecting him from injury it’s about the fact that there are certain games he plays and struggles in and that leaves the whole team struggling. We’ve seen it in the last few months. Stevenage won’t be like Oxford I shouldn’t have thought.

From Sheehan? We see much less of it from him, than we do Dempsey and Thomason. Always wants the ball, always trying to make things happen.

I really don't see a case for dropping him at Stevenage just because he's a little 'un. Got bigger stones than anybody else in the team

It’s not a case of dropping him. It’s that when teams needle him allied to a strong press he struggles and when that happens the team has struggled. There are a number of times this has happened. Got nothing to do with bravery or lack of it’s just a reality that there are times teams can knock him out of games and I believe when that happens and he’s on the pitch we start to panic.

Again, he suffers much less in a pressing game than the others around him. You'd have Thomason in there in a heart beat, who really, really struggles when pressed. So I don't think it actually has anything to do with being pressed. It's the pre-conception you have, that you need bigger boys in when playing a physical team.

He's MORE likely to win freekicks
He's MORE likely to keep possession
He's LESS likely to get booked
He's LESS likely to concede goalscoring opportunities
He's LESS likely to give set-pieces away around our area.

[BWFC_Insane]

It’s not just about protecting him from injury it’s about the fact that there are certain games he plays and struggles in and that leaves the whole team struggling. We’ve seen it in the last few months. Stevenage won’t be like Oxford I shouldn’t have thought.

From Sheehan? We see much less of it from him, than we do Dempsey and Thomason. Always wants the ball, always trying to make things happen.

I really don't see a case for dropping him at Stevenage just because he's a little 'un. Got bigger stones than anybody else in the team

It’s not a case of dropping him. It’s that when teams needle him allied to a strong press he struggles and when that happens the team has struggled. There are a number of times this has happened. Got nothing to do with bravery or lack of it’s just a reality that there are times teams can knock him out of games and I believe when that happens and he’s on the pitch we start to panic.

Again, he suffers much less in a pressing game than the others around him. You'd have Thomason in there in a heart beat, who really, really struggles when pressed. So I don't think it actually has anything to do with being pressed. It's the pre-conception you have, that you need bigger boys in when playing a physical team.

He's MORE likely to win freekicks
He's MORE likely to keep possession
He's LESS likely to get booked
He's LESS likely to concede goalscoring opportunities
He's LESS likely to give set-pieces away around our area.

Right but we’ve seen that often when teams are good at the press we don’t try and play through it - and under instruction of Evatt too.

We bypass it. In real terms we go more direct. And that is when I feel we don’t get the best out of Sheehan and when you couple that with rougher treatment I think there are games where as a team we become less effective with him in the side.

But that’s nothing to do with preconception or putting the big boys in. We don’t have any big boys. Once teams like Barnsley drop slightly it massively opens the game up for Sheehan to dictate it but we all know what a Steve Evans side will do.


I’m not talking about dropping him it’s whether it’s the best way to beat Stevenage away or not. If as a team we play into Sheehan and use him it’s ok but if we panic because he’s been kicked and start going direct then I think it changes the balance of midfield. If we are at times in recent months looking to mainly win second balls it’s more Dempsey and GT than Sheehan. At least for an hour when maybe then more gaps and holes open up.

[boltonboris]

Can I just remind you of Sheehan's input last time we played Stevenage

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Thanks, Mar. I do like it when people do research. As you say, in this case it's inconclusive to an extent (not enough data on away games) but it suggests we as fans may be humanly vulnerable to confirmation bias.

As fans who love the team, it hurts when we lose to rivals – whether temporary promotion/relegation threats or, even more acutely, perennial local hate-figures. Defeats tend to stick in the memory and bolster the natural tendency toward confirmation bias – see also "we always lose to teams on a losing run", "we always lose to new managers", "ex-players always score against us". If that happens once, it sticks in the memory more than the times it doesn't.

So we remember failing in the play-offs - admittedly, a huge fail - but the "we bottle big games" narratives ignores the Wembley final in which we demolished the 101-pts champions in front of 80,000. Or indeed the semi-final with a patched-up team which we were assured could be an away-end armageddon. For failure in derbies, Blackpool away is held up as an example, but Blackpool at home is quietly ignored.

As Pru has suggested elsewhere and Mar has enumerated here, pretty much *all* teams struggle more against other good teams - the clue's in the adjective.

Derby, for example, haven't beaten Pompey or us this season, in which they've also lost to Posh and Barnsley and Stevenage and Oxford and Wigan (imagine that) and Charlton and Shrewsbury and Reading. Do I think of those results when I think of Derby? No, I imagine a team of Terminators on 50% more money than our boys, managed by someone with three promotions from this division. Do their fans? Probably not, because like us they're football fans. Not long since plenty of them wanted Warne sacked.

[Mar]

Thanks, Mar. I do like it when people do research. As you say, in this case it's inconclusive to an extent (not enough data on away games) but it suggests we as fans may be humanly vulnerable to confirmation bias.

I think that's part of why I collated the results, to determine whether we were reflecting on our results in an accurate manner. Those running the club would've no doubt done the research already and determined that we're no different than the majority of the clubs in this league. Aside from Portsmouth who have been better against the top teams, we're holding our own.

The only way we could be thinking we're the best club in the division would be to completely walk the league. We've not done that, so we're as usual reflecting on the bad things. But just because we have bad things to reflect on, doesn't mean we are the bad thing. Far from it.

[Prufrock]

Well I could have told you that

[officer_dibble]

Realistically now we need Derby to drop 7 points across 6 games to be in with a shout of being second final day (given we have Pompey which I’m assuming we’ll lose). They also have Pompey, but 4 across their other 5 games looks a big ask. Which means the Peterborough game might be a dead rubber against a side we might play in the play offs… be a poor do to not even take it to the final game…but there we are.