Here Wycombe a Wandering . Away to Wycombe Friday 20th Dec 19-45.

[TANGODANCER]

Back online with an early entry and a reminder that this is a Friday night game:

How to beat Bolton Wanderers is a new chapter in the League 1 Football almanac.

"Get stuck in, bully them and and bombard their box" is the mandate. If our track-suited leader can't come up with a format to overcome the other Wanderers, expect all kinds of horse manure to be in flight come Saturday. Unless we become more physical, teams all around us will be seeing us as soft touches and kicking lumps out of us. Wigan defended like Trojans, us like wooden horses and we duly paid the price. If the hordes streaming out of the Unibol didn't act as a wake up for I.E., then nothing will. It's beyond the joking stage now and the bottom half of the table beckons ominously.

Pretty parcel passing just doesn't cut it in this league and we've had enough warnings. If you have an answer please tell the players what it is. For me it's "fight"!

Wander on....

[Bertie Wooster]

4-0 Wycombe

[The_Gun]

We have one available first team centre back for this one, and it’s not like we’ve been a defensive force this season anyway.

Wycombe might run up a cricket score.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Let's see what hand we've been dealt:

• Travelling to the league leaders, easily the top scorers, 2+ppg, lost twice all season, twice as many scored as conceded.
• Goalkeeper who hasn't kept a clean sheet since September.
• Presumably a back three of JDC-Forrester-Jones (unless we rush back Toal or Forino).
• Wingbacks who are wingers and often 'defend' as such.
• Matete-Tomo-McAtee midfield trio, as was overrun at home by 19th-placed Wigan.
• Up front, Dion (2 league goals since Oct 1st) easily our best hope, paired with either Victor (2 league goals since the opening day) or Collins (2 league goals all season).
• Manager whose reaction to criticism has been to point to statistics, but not the one the says we have a negative goal difference.
• Fans among whom the vast majority don't think the manager will take us up, some of whom are increasingly vocally disillusioned.

Forgive me if I'm unenthusiastic. Perhaps ironic that the last game before Xmas is the one where all faith has gone.

[dave the minion]

It'll be reet.

We'll shit 'em..........

[officer_dibble]

Don’t forget Tutu won’t be able to do more than an hour. He went off sat pulling at his hammy. He might of just fancied an early bath to be fair!

[Mar]

Forgive me if I'm unenthusiastic. Perhaps ironic that the last game before Xmas is the one where all faith has gone.

I'm sure Evatt would just as soon be referring you to the ghosts of Christmas past before criticizing the ghosts of Christmas present.

We're all keen on getting a better improvement to wash away the ghosts of Christmas future, and perhaps the way we're going to do that is to lean into the clean sheet.

Our defence has been all over the place recently. We're trying ever so hard to support a misfiring strikeforce that we're failing to do the main thing and build from a solid foundation. Evatt presumably is trying to get to the January transfer window to fix the problems that occurred over summer (signings to fit a bad formation) and actually get us balance within the squad.

As it stands we've got few defenders available, a few midfielders available and a load of strikers who don't want to play out of position.

It's high time we went for a 4-5-1 or a 5-4-1 and sort out this problem of shipping goals. JDC, Forrester and Jones as a back three doesn't fill me with confidence, in fact, our departees would give me greater confidence (Aimson, Iredale, Mbete) than the makeshift crop we're likely to put out against league leaders.


It wouldn't surprise me if I heard (years down the line) reports of them missing out on the match due to picking up yellow cards deliberately to avoid getting another Evatt-esque pasting. We're that weak as a collective mentally (perhaps less so individually) that I think for some it would be a sane choice.

The club needs to change that mentality.

I'm going to try and be supportive (rather than critical) for those who are actually available on Friday. It's a tough ask for those at the back having barely played together to suddenly gel. If we get beat, so be it (such is the apathy). An improvement on Birmingham would be nice.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Don’t forget Tutu won’t be able to do more than an hour. He went off sat pulling at his hammy. He might of just fancied an early bath to be fair!

Then we can bring on (or start with) Randell Williams – another winger gamefully masquerading as wingback.

By contrast, JDC, like Gethin, is a full-back gamely masquerading as a wingback. There's no lack of gameness to the masquerade; just a lack of all-round suitability for this absolutely key role in the manager's default formation.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Mar - only two teams in the division have got fewer clean sheets than our 3. They are 13th and 24th.

Wycombe have not yet failed to score in a league game - the only team in the division to manage this. They've scored in both halves of 10 of them - also a divisional high.

You are of course entirely right that any team with a hope in hell of promotion needs to defend better. If we did manage to get a clean sheet at Wycombe, what does it say for the management of the season so far? And would we even learn from it?

If there is any statistical hope, it is that only one team (Posh) have featured in more league games where both sides scored. That gives me faith we might score a consolation.

[boltonboris]

I think if this game was being played in my garden, I'd shut the blinds

[Worthy4England]

I think if this game was being played in my garden, I'd shut the blinds

[DJBlu]

4-0 Wycombe

No Morley, small crowd, we'll probably win handsomely. Cause that's what Ian Evatt does.

[officer_dibble]

4-0 Wycombe

No Morley, small crowd, we'll probably win handsomely. Cause that's what Ian Evatt does.

Not against top 6 teams
Where we playing Stevenage we’d have a chance of upsetting the odds
We’ll get bummed here a good 3 or 4 goals to nil
Won’t make a difference, Sharon will still have Ian round for Christmas Day.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Home game for Sharon isn't it? Wycombe, I mean. So she'll once again be able to see the difference between the clubs - just like she did at the "azitbindun" game - only this time, she's not the catalyst for change and hope but the reason for ennui and inertia.

Much as I want fans to support the club, I'm beginning to think that only visible, voluble, visceral dissent at the games will make the owner realize she might be at danger of going down with Evatt's ship.

[Mar]

Should we end up getting a result against Wycome, by that I mean the win, then it should go someway towards dispelling the myth we don't win against the big six or win against troublesome teams.

I don't think it'll change the narrative. We need a pattern of upsetting the odds. One off games won't cut it.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Any team chasing promotion needs to win consistently. Only twice this season have we strung together consecutive league wins. That’s not good enough.

[Harry Genshaw]

I'm expecting a similar game to the one at Birmingham. Game plan out of the window early on as they score, then a bit of huffing and puffing without threatening anything before they add a 2nd.

Think I'll be more interested in his post match interview than the game itself.

[Worthy4England]

Any team chasing promotion needs to win consistently. Only twice this season have we strung together consecutive league wins. That’s not good enough.

And maybe not be on target for losing 15...

[officer_dibble]

I know there is no chance but if they dared to win this game I would be even more annoyed! Wigan are dog shit, 19th on Saturday. Yet every time they beat us! Im genuinely getting to the stage where I want us to get a good kicking and keep getting beat until he goes and probably takes Sharon with him at this stage!

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Any team chasing promotion needs to win consistently. Only twice this season have we strung together consecutive league wins. That’s not good enough.

And maybe not be on target for losing 15...

Well quite. There are plenty of stats far more relevant than a historical 50% win rate.