Down in The Valley, something stirred. V Charlton Athletic away Sat Aug 24th 3-0 'clock.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Are there stats for complete and utter balls up per player?

On one hand we're saying the players are good enough, yet anecdotally it feels like (at least some) are fecking it up more frequently than they should. Is this the demands of the system, the players themselves or are they just comparable to everyone else in the division and it is confirmation bias every time it happens?

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Are there stats for complete and utter balls up per player?

On one hand we're saying the players are good enough, yet anecdotally it feels like (at least some) are fecking it up more frequently than they should. Is this the demands of the system, the players themselves or are they just comparable to everyone else in the division and it is confirmation bias every time it happens?

IIRC, Opta does count "mistakes leading to goals" (and possibly "mistakes leading to chances") but perhaps not at our level.

Most systems are about balancing risk/reward. Ours is especially vulnerable in two linked areas: trying to pass forwards when we have an overload (if it's intercepted, we're vulnerable in transition); and the habit of leaving Santos 1v1 - most teams still reflexively tend to leave back more defenders than the oppo attackers. We win more than we lose, and we presumnably win more than we would if we never tried to overload, but we do sometimes lose games through errors and transitions.

[BWFC_Insane]

Interestingly it's also enough points to get you into the play-offs in 7 of the last 10 Championship seasons - another 46 game division.

Probably informative as to how points distributions work generally, but it'd take a lot of work to test it properly.

Suffice to say we're okay, even when we're crap; but we need to be a lot better if Evatt's to keep his job.

I think we will soon find out this league this season is a lot stronger than last and my guess is our performance last season would leave us 2 or 3 maybe even 4 or 5 places lower.

The improvement needed on last season is quite significant just to stand still. And standing still is not good enough we need to be promoted.

Our improvement is not measured by how well we play against sides that are bottom half on our best days. It’s measured by our ability to win games against the top 6 and those games where we aren’t maybe flying in form. Consistency is the key - not in performance but in ability to get the result.

[dave the minion]

Why do we 'need" to be promoted?

Genuine question. We all want promotion, and the invest are aiming for it, but what happens if we dont get it?

You said all lost season he needed promotion, yet we missed out and were still here and have invested heavily in the squad....

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

As Prufrock notes, having six or eight strong teams just makes it more likely that they will take points off each other. It can have a significant statistical effect if there's say eight strong teams rather than four.

If the top eight draw all their 'six-pointers' against one another that's 14pts each (from 14 games of the 46, a fair swathe) rather than the 21pts they'd get if they won all their home six-pointers, or more if they win some away games too against say the fifth-to-eighth teams. But they can't all beat each other, and if they're all so fearsome, then draws are more likely, and draws only output a total of 2pts rather than 3.

What might be true is that all the top 8, if fearsome, might mop up most of their points against 12th-24th. But that's not the issue for us (these days). What we need to do is win the 6-pointers. That run between the 12th and 15th league games - Brum, Stockport, Posh, Rotherham - will give a very strong indication of how good we are at that.

[HMX]

Why do we 'need" to be promoted?

Genuine question. We all want promotion, and the invest are aiming for it, but what happens if we dont get it?

You said all lost season he needed promotion, yet we missed out and were still here and have invested heavily in the squad....

I get the impression that the spending this season is a Hail Mary and praying we go up. If we don't... who knows. Will we invest again? Is there enough in the kitty? Not sure about that.

[GhostoftheBok]

I get the impression that the spending this season is a Hail Mary and praying we go up. If we don't... who knows. Will we invest again? Is there enough in the kitty? Not sure about that.

Nobody actually knows.

[Worthy4England]

Why do we 'need" to be promoted?

Genuine question. We all want promotion, and the invest are aiming for it, but what happens if we dont get it?

You said all lost season he needed promotion, yet we missed out and were still here and have invested heavily in the squad....

We don't. And you're right. We're still here eeking our meagre existence and thankful the sun rose again - well it didn't where I am. That's worth getting outta bed for. We could just play friendlies (genuine) and some folks might enjoy that.

For me a professional league is about winning it. We almost certainly won't do that in the Prem unless we adopt a Sheikh, the Champo, maybe another tough call...but we're in L1 and the noises coming from the Club is we want to win it. You're welcome to do you and it falls into the nice try bucket - there's room for that. It's not what I want though.

We did "the best we can be," plenty last year - that's baseline, from a team who had expectations of going up. We didn't do it quite good enough. That isn't an "oh well" place for me mate, as we enter year 4 of L1. Y1/Y2 we could've been plenty more pokey (well I could for sure ). Those years we went nice try. Last season looked a great opportuinity and we contrived to fcuk it up. That's still not a lot of games your losing, but you don't expect to lose many if you are promotion contenders (and we're certainly that). So it does come down to a few poor games. He doesn't have much credit in the bank for me after watching it unravel against Oxford and thinking we just need better plan A. For me that needed plan B, probably from about 15 minutes in....

[Worthy4England]

As Prufrock notes, having six or eight strong teams just makes it more likely that they will take points off each other. It can have a significant statistical effect if there's say eight strong teams rather than four.

If the top eight draw all their 'six-pointers' against one another that's 14pts each (from 14 games of the 46, a fair swathe) rather than the 21pts they'd get if they won all their home six-pointers, or more if they win some away games too against say the fifth-to-eighth teams. But they can't all beat each other, and if they're all so fearsome, then draws are more likely, and draws only output a total of 2pts rather than 3.

What might be true is that all the top 8, if fearsome, might mop up most of their points against 12th-24th. But that's not the issue for us (these days). What we need to do is win the 6-pointers. That run between the 12th and 15th league games - Brum, Stockport, Posh, Rotherham - will give a very strong indication of how good we are at that.

If you beat them, it saves you thinking through all these permutations.

[Worthy4England]

Interestingly it's also enough points to get you into the play-offs in 7 of the last 10 Championship seasons - another 46 game division.

Probably informative as to how points distributions work generally, but it'd take a lot of work to test it properly.

Suffice to say we're okay, even when we're crap; but we need to be a lot better if Evatt's to keep his job.

Yes, but it depends on whether you think there's been an upward trend and whether that will continue. If it's my team, I'm going to assume it will and if it doesn't, I should have credit in the bank. 2015 someone made it up on 69 points, but I wouldn't want to target that either...

[GhostoftheBok]

Yes, but it depends on whether you think there's been an upward trend and whether that will continue. If it's my team, I'm going to assume it will and if it doesn't, I should have credit in the bank. 2015 someone made it up on 69 points, but I wouldn't want to target that either...

Is it an upward trend or a downward trend? Do the top teams get more points when the general quality of the league is weaker? If this is genuinely a stronger league will that mean the play-off points total is lower? Will 2-3 uber teams run away at the top?

We really don't know.

I agree you have to assume it's going to be the toughest season ever and plan accordingly. However, you can only do your best with what you have in any season. I don't think anyone goes into a season thinking "We'll just coast this one"...except Daniel Levy, obviously.

Past all the this and that stuff, we all agree we need to be a lot better than we have been in this calendar year.

Also one day I will spell "calendar" first time, without getting any of the vowels in the wrong order.

[Worthy4England]

Yes, but it depends on whether you think there's been an upward trend and whether that will continue. If it's my team, I'm going to assume it will and if it doesn't, I should have credit in the bank. 2015 someone made it up on 69 points, but I wouldn't want to target that either...

Is it an upward trend or a downward trend? Do the top teams get more points when the general quality of the league is weaker? If this is genuinely a stronger league will that mean the play-off points total is lower? Will 2-3 uber teams run away at the top?

We really don't know.

I agree you have to assume it's going to be the toughest season ever and plan accordingly. However, you can only do your best with what you have in any season. I don't think anyone goes into a season thinking "We'll just coast this one"...except Daniel Levy, obviously.

Past all the this and that stuff, we all agree we need to be a lot better than we have been in this calendar year.

Also one day I will spell "calendar" first time, without getting any of the vowels in the wrong order.

The trendlines for the top 6 places are all higher over the last 25 years. That's not to say that in any given season for reasons you mention there isn't an "all took points off each other" scenario. The top 6 accumulate between 453 and 539 points. That's a chunk of change. The points spread has been as close as 9 and as wide as 30.

Given our target is 2ppg, it's somewhat incidental to be talking about whether 76 would be good enough for 6th feels like Mr Low Bar is clinging on. 2nd. 92 points gets you up all but 4 since the turn of the century, with a debate on 2 as to whether your GD would have been good enough.

[officer_dibble]

Why do we 'need" to be promoted?

Genuine question. We all want promotion, and the invest are aiming for it, but what happens if we dont get it?

You said all lost season he needed promotion, yet we missed out and were still here and have invested heavily in the squad....

Honest question - do you think Evatt needs us to be promoted to keep his job? Or say we finish in the play offs or top half and don’t go up, does he stay?

I think he does - what I don’t know is how long he will get / how much patience. I think the fans will turn fairly quickly this year, rightly or wrongly.

[GhostoftheBok]

Given our target is 2ppg, it's somewhat incidental to be talking about whether 76 would be good enough for 6th feels like Mr Low Bar is clinging on.

It's certainly not my metric.

I will take any promotion, but the aim should be to be champions.

Promotion is success, but PPG be damned. You go out to win every single football match, with the point being to win a division.

Bolton's history of winning divisional titles is pretty pathetic for a club of our stature. 4 in total, I think - all lower divisions, obviously.

I want to be the best at this level. Not claim it, but to actually prove it over 46 games.

I'll also take a League Cup, if that's not too much trouble.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Bolton's history of winning divisional titles is pretty pathetic for a club of our stature. 4 in total, I think - all lower divisions, obviously.

Aye. All four won before Tony Blair was PM, three before Margaret Thatcher was, one before David Lloyd George was.

[GhostoftheBok]

Aye. All four won before Tony Blair was PM, three before Margaret Thatcher was, one before David Lloyd George was.

Yup. Piss poor.

Being a glory hunting Bolton fan is a hard life.

[Worthy4England]

Great year to break the trend!

We've spent 73 years at level 1 in the pyramid and never won it, that accounts for nearly 60% of our existence.

For the rest, we've been promoted, 13 in 52 trys. We've been on downwards trends, probably 22 of those years culminating in a further relegation, so on upward trends we're about 13 in 30 for promotions so need to get our fingers out.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

As Ghost has wisely pointed out, most seasons end in failure... but I think it's fair to assume that if Evatt's season doesn't end in promotion, that will also end his tenure.

I said last season (maybe at about this time, maybe earlier) that it depended how that season ended: a valiant effort and unlucky Wembley loss would probably earn another go. The effort was fairly valiant - only two seasons in our history have yielded more points - but the manner of the Wembley loss was anything but heroic. That's what leaves Evatt pushing uphill in PR terms this season - but such is football. Winning tends to cheer folk up.

[BWFC_Insane]

As Ghost has wisely pointed out, most seasons end in failure... but I think it's fair to assume that if Evatt's season doesn't end in promotion, that will also end his tenure.

I said last season (maybe at about this time, maybe earlier) that it depended how that season ended: a valiant effort and unlucky Wembley loss would probably earn another go. The effort was fairly valiant - only two seasons in our history have yielded more points - but the manner of the Wembley loss was anything but heroic. That's what leaves Evatt pushing uphill in PR terms this season - but such is football. Winning tends to cheer folk up.

If we had Warne we’d have gone up Im certain of it. I think quite a few solid and experienced managers would have taken us up last season.

The whole thing got the wobbles round Christmas time and never looked like we’d do it imho. Sometimes you could say last season was good. Came close. Not quite good enough. But we were good enough in a poor league. We threw it away time and time again.

[GhostoftheBok]

If Warne had been manager you'd have been calling for his head by November, as Derby fans were.

He limped over the line after we lost both our #9s and our keeper, despite having more players on better money.

Evatt had 32 points after 15 games last season. Warne took 24.

That would have been "enough games" to show he "couldn't do it" and that'd have been that.

Warne's win ratio at Derby, with a large, well paid squad, is almost identical to Evatt's over his entire tenure here.

The previous season Warne lost 7 and won 7 after the January window.

Last season Evatt won 7, but only lost 3.

I dread to think of the things you'd have called Warne over the summer of 2023.