Breaking pots... Home v Port Vale Sat 20th Apr. 3-0'Clock.

[BWFC_Insane]

Not sure what Taylor Swift relevance is? Other than every song of hers I’ve ever heard sounds exactly the same as the one before……and every Bolton performance bar a select few seem to be frustrating in the same ways as the last?

I think in history we’ve seen a lot of teams like us - great in possession dominate the ball but can’t really consistently kill teams off. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Is it psychological? In that in football no team is ever going to score every chance and a possession based side is likely to face more instances of the (insert trendy nu manager nonsense) low block…and hence when they don’t score early find it more frustrating when a chance does go a begging than say a side relying more on transition?

The opposition clinging on without the ball also must get a boost when we haven’t scored and think it’s their day.

So there is the psychological element. There is I guess also potentially a technical element. Some of the best finishers I’ve seen aren’t necessarily great technical link players or all round types. They just could strike a ball very accurately and often very hard. A calmness in front of goal and a sense of where to be.

Maybe the more technical a team needs to be the more it presses the less likely you will have those types in it (as technical ability is prioritised over economy and just plain old finishing skill). Especially at lower levels where finding all in one package is hard.

Maghoma a good example. An absolutely superb player who has undoubtedly improved his finishing with us but still has a habit to lean back and just blaze one over the bar trying to curl it into the top corner instead of just a full blooded head over the ball shot. His ability means he can do the clever thing. But maybe means he tries it too often instead of just thumping one into the top or bottom corner.

Another factor I think is that we know mostly teams will sit in. We therefore also know chances are more scarce. So if we don’t score early does it become too frantic or alternatively too slow? Do we struggle with the mental side more because of the way we play?

I mean such things translate right to the highest end of the game. Man City vs Madrid for example. You’d expect city to win but they couldn’t convert possession into goals on the night. Against the best sides if you can’t do that chances are you suffer the other way.

[Worthy4England]

No relevance at all mate other than new is obviously "better"

Overall, we can't really knock "volume of goals," I too, think it was trickier than it looked to put the Charles/Collins effort to bed.

The issue for me isn't when it's working and we win by a few, it's the tight games where we drop 2 points or all 3. And it's fine margins at the too, likely to come down to one or two games in the final analysis.

The top 4, we've lost or drawn 1-2 games more than our competitors and that's going to be the difference. I think it's this point that worries folks about the Plan B is to be better at Plan A. But reality is, our bench strikers have about 6 goals between 3 of them in the league and I doubt there's more than 1 of 'em has altered the points tally positively..

[boltonboris]

As a standalone game, earlier in the season, we'd have been very happy with that performance. Yes, we should have scored more. But we played well and we'll take those positives into the play offs.

Collins is firing now and he looks capable of creating something whenever the ball is near him. He hits the ball sweetly and pops up all over the place. He and Charles look like they can build a decent partnership of energy, interchange and link-up. Excited to see it develop

[BWFC_Insane]

Yeah this is my view. We’ve known realistically the points total needed was low to mid 90’s for a while. It’s not a shock and we went into the season with such a target in mind. Was never going to be quite as bad as Sheffield Weds missing out on 94 or whatever last season but was going to be ballpark there since the top end of this division has become far stronger than the bottom end so points totals concentrate up.

We aren’t unlucky. I think we’ve just not been quite good enough. Injuries sure but all three at the top have had injuries ours arguably on the face of it less sever than other two we lost cope worse. Derby are in a transfer embargo too and haven’t been able to spend.

I’d say that the plan A and B thing is often as simple as - if we’ve tried playing for an hour and aren’t getting anywhere against a low block why can’t we have two big lads on the bench to come on and throw the ball into the box for with some quality delivery? It might chance the dynamic of the game. They might not be the best players in the world but give the opposition a completely new type of threat to deal with. The issue as you say with ‘just do plan A’ better is that it broadly relies on during a game having a better player on the bench which is unlikely for us or a different sort. The only player I feel we have with a point of real difference is CMG and that’s not enough if all we’ve got in game is ‘do it a bit better’.

[BWFC_Insane]

As a standalone game, earlier in the season, we'd have been very happy with that performance. Yes, we should have scored more. But we played well and we'll take those positives into the play offs.

Collins is firing now and he looks capable of creating something whenever the ball is near him. He hits the ball sweetly and pops up all over the place. He and Charles look like they can build a decent partnership of energy, interchange and link-up. Excited to see it develop

I saw some posts suggest they couldn’t play together after the game but I saw it as something that had promise and potentially lots of movement. They didn’t maybe link up as well as is ideal but I thought we carried greater threat up front than we had for a few weeks and that over time they could be very good together.

[boltonboris]

As a standalone game, earlier in the season, we'd have been very happy with that performance. Yes, we should have scored more. But we played well and we'll take those positives into the play offs.

Collins is firing now and he looks capable of creating something whenever the ball is near him. He hits the ball sweetly and pops up all over the place. He and Charles look like they can build a decent partnership of energy, interchange and link-up. Excited to see it develop

I saw some posts suggest they couldn’t play together after the game but I saw it as something that had promise and potentially lots of movement. They didn’t maybe link up as well as is ideal but I thought we carried greater threat up front than we had for a few weeks and that over time they could be very good together.

I like the fact they were swapping between being 10's and 9's - Taking it turns to drop off and keep their defenders guessing. Charles will never be the one to thread cute passes, but if they can work on getting passes into one of them from a midfielder and the other one spinning off, we'll create loads of chances