One Mansfield is another's lawn. Away to the Midlanders New Year's Day 3-0' clock'

[TANGODANCER]

Having rattled three goals past Nigel Clough's Manfield side just over three weeks ago, can we do another "Jane Austen happy ending" on their turf? It won't be a cake walk, that's for sure, with much gnashing of teeth and the home side to contend with. Are we up to it? Yesterday indicates yes, but it's a real QUE SERA SERA situation. .. To horse and at em then to start our New Year.

[Mar]

This game certainly could be a reflection of our professionalism going into the latter half of the season.

It'll be all too easy for the players to have a piss up on New Year's Eve but should we come out flying it may just be a reflection on us improving our professionalism and standards. Those wondering whether we're fully committed may just get proof they need were on the right track. Perform like we've had a NY hangover and that'll likely be the nod that our seasons all but failing.

New Year, new start. 2024 wasn't as good as we'd liked but 2025 may just be the improvement we need. It's a chance for Evatt.

Maybe I'm getting carried away with the possibility of a fresh start with or without Evatt. Either way 2025 has a chance for a new beginning

[GhostoftheBok]

Maybe I'm getting carried away with the possibility of a fresh start with or without Evatt. Either way 2025 has a chance for a new beginning

We could be the best team in the division over the second half of the season and still not finish in the top 4.

A 9 point gap is pretty big.

If Evatt is to get a reprieve then he has to be promoted. If it were a new manager we'd be even further adrift by the time he was appointed.

So we likely have to be very, very good for the last 25 games AND then navigate the play-offs. That's a painfully narrow path. More like a tightrope.

You don't get a fresh start after nearly 5 years. So here we go.

[truewhite15]

Four months of the season remain. Plus at least one game in May.

2024 has, by and large, been a pretty crappy time to be a Bolton fan. Stumbling our way out of contention for the automatics before falling flat on our noses in front of the nation on the final hurdle, followed by a start to the season that's done nothing to get us back on track.

In 2025, we have to start like an F1 car leaping off pole position. Promotion is still the target, though autos are a dim and receding memory. Barrel into the playoffs like a freight train at full chat - and that has to start now.

[Mar]

Maybe I'm getting carried away with the possibility of a fresh start with or without Evatt. Either way 2025 has a chance for a new beginning

We could be the best team in the division over the second half of the season and still not finish in the top 4.

A 9 point gap is pretty big.

If Evatt is to get a reprieve then he has to be promoted. If it were a new manager we'd be even further adrift by the time he was appointed.

So we likely have to be very, very good for the last 25 games AND then navigate the play-offs. That's a painfully narrow path. More like a tightrope.

You don't get a fresh start after nearly 5 years. So here we go.

No fresh start, but a platform to build on at least.

I think automatics are gone this season and have been for about a month or so. Still, the issue we had with last season is that we didn't go into the final stages with any sort of form or confidence and we sort of ambled into that. We had arguably a better squad than that Oxford one that got promoted and yet we didn't have the momentum they had.

Losing to Barnsley in the second leg pretty much showed our weak underbelly and gave Oxford a means of beating us.


We need to be on a roll.

[GhostoftheBok]

We need to be on a roll.

It's usually (but not always) the form team that wins the play-offs, as you'd expect.

We just have to win football matches. We have a window to improve and 25 league games to win. It's no longer complicated or nuanced. This is the last gasp of this phase of rebuilding the club. We go up or we probably (you never know) go into the summer with a new manager and the need to rework things.

If we won 19 of the last 25, finished 3rd and lost at Wembley due to the worst reffing in the history of the game then maybe Sharon gives us season 6 of Evatt. Other than that it's shit or bust.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

It's usually (but not always) the form team that wins the play-offs, as you'd expect.

This cracked open a memory long dusted over. Back in the day on FourFourTwo, when all here was fields and whistling bobbies on the beat, I did a deep dive into playoff data to check whether form and/or finishing position tended to be relevant to your chances of success. To my surprise I found that finishing position was far more relevant than form. I can't quickly find that feature, and it's way out of date now anyway, but I see Opta did Summat Similar this spring:

https://theanalyst.com/2024/05/efl-play ... e-position

They found that in the third tier, 37% of the winners had finished in 3rd, compared to 23% in 4th, 17% in 5th, 23% in 6th. (Oxford finished 5th, which is why we played Barnsley in the semis.) And this isn't a legacy thing: even with our collapse this year it's now 4 of the last 6 winners have finished 3rd - which may (or may not) be indicative of that rich-man/poor-man chasm arguably now dipping out of the Championship and into the upper reaches of our current division.

As for form, League One seems to be a chaotic outlier. In the other two divisions, the best-form team is essentially twice as likely as the worst-form team to go up - which seems reasonable. But in our division, they're roughly equal - 36.7% best-formers, 30% worst-formers, 33.3% the other two. Last season's best-formers Oxford will have tipped that back toward the sensible but not by much (the playoffs have been going since 1989, so that's a lot of data now).

Obviously obviously obviously I'd rather us roar into the playoffs smashing teams hither and yon, but being in form doesn't historically mean we're in the box seat... just like us being in the box-seat 3rd position last year didn't help us either

We just have to win football matches. We have a window to improve and 25 league games to win. It's no longer complicated or nuanced. This is the last gasp of this phase of rebuilding the club. We go up or we probably (you never know) go into the summer with a new manager and the need to rework things.

Just. Keep. Winning. It's always been the refrain of successful teams but in Evatt's case this season it's been more from fear than hunger. That fear wouldn't be banished by any single win (not even at Wembley... which would obvz require other wins first) but by a whole mood-changing succession of them. Months of them. Against 11 men, against promotion rivals, against local rivals, against just about everyone. Winning has to be normalised and expected - expected more than humiliation, at least.

If we won 19 of the last 25, finished 3rd and lost at Wembley due to the worst reffing in the history of the game then maybe Sharon gives us season 6 of Evatt. Other than that it's shit or bust.

I think I expressed this sort of non-promotion-but-unlucky caveat last season. I suppose what transpired was different in that it we weren't robbed of promotion - the call came from inside the house. But that damage is done and even if we were to be desperately unlucky, I suspect Sharon and the board would have to think very very carefully about the fans' appetite for another spin with the current management. That might sound flippant or dismissive but that's where we're at – and those pressures have come from Evatt and Brittan as well as from the fans.

[GhostoftheBok]

I think I expressed this sort of non-promotion-but-unlucky caveat last season. I suppose what transpired was different in that it we weren't robbed of promotion - the call came from inside the house. But that damage is done and even if we were to be desperately unlucky, I suspect Sharon and the board would have to think very very carefully about the fans' appetite for another spin with the current management. That might sound flippant or dismissive but that's where we're at – and those pressures have come from Evatt and Brittan as well as from the fans.

My own feeling is that anything short of promotion means we refresh and Evatt has a holiday to get himself right.

However, I'd have sacked him a while ago.

Sharon may well feel very differently and it'd be hard to sack a manager who had won (just as an example) 21 of the last 28 games.

That kind of form is incredibly unlikely, though, so chances are she will have an easier choice to make.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

I think I expressed this sort of non-promotion-but-unlucky caveat last season. I suppose what transpired was different in that it we weren't robbed of promotion - the call came from inside the house. But that damage is done and even if we were to be desperately unlucky, I suspect Sharon and the board would have to think very very carefully about the fans' appetite for another spin with the current management. That might sound flippant or dismissive but that's where we're at – and those pressures have come from Evatt and Brittan as well as from the fans.

My own feeling is that anything short of promotion means we refresh and Evatt has a holiday to get himself right.

However, I'd have sacked him a while ago.

Sharon may well feel very differently and it'd be hard to sack a manager who had won (just as an example) 21 of the last 28 games.

That kind of form is incredibly unlikely, though, so chances are she will have an easier choice to make.

Yeah, the probability that we suddenly become brilliant and only miss promotion by some malevolent outside factor is very low. I mean, we could lose 1-0 to an offside goal but then why did we draw a blank again? If we lose 4-3 to an offside goal why did we concede the other 3? etc and so on.

Personally I think even if we go up, as soon as we lose two on the bounce there'll be complaints. It's the nature of things.

[GhostoftheBok]

Personally I think even if we go up, as soon as we lose two on the bounce there'll be complaints. It's the nature of things.

If Evatt took us to another promotion then everyone would need to shut up for a bit and let him have had a wobble. Development in football is rarely a straight line. What matters is that you keep going forwards.

This season we've gone backwards, but if it ended in promotion then fair play to the man. Very lucky to be in a job, but would have done what was needed.

[jmjhb]

I would agree. Can't say much, obviously, but there are lot of potential developments/plans in place that are essentially reliant on the club getting back in the Championship.

[TANGODANCER]

All the threads t the moment seem to be inevitably about transfers, sacking the manager and where we'll be at season end. Can we just concentrate on this match thread, one step at a time fashion, and focus on our chances of beating Mansfield? I'm sure Nigel Clough will be doing just that and not his future. Win this and its a start, and win it we must. Come on, lets take heed the "“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step ” The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said; “. Let's step on Mansfield then..

Amen.

[TANGODANCER]

Whishing you all a Happy New Year for 2025 and that we start it positively. It's bucketed down all night and football will be furthest from a lot of minds, but we really need to go into the new year as we mean to go on. Come on then Whites, step on the gas and start as we mean to go on..

[GhostoftheBok]

Happy New Year, Tango. And to all the rest of you.

[Harry Genshaw]

Not expecting a heavy defeat or a thumping victory today. A close fought encounter that we hopefully come out on the right side of.

1-0 Wanderers (Dacres-Cogley) and it's like 1978 all over again.

[HMX]

2-1 to the whites. Collins and a Toal header (why not, eh)

[TonyDomingos]

New Year, same old Wanderers: 1-0 to them.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Evatt’s invoking the spirit of King Arthur. Not the dude biding his time in Avalon, the one who wanted a quick school run.

Winning at Field Mill kicked off a promotion charge last time; whatever the size of our reservations about the current management, let’s hope for similar.

[dave the minion]

I've not said this yet, so here goes......

It'll be reet, we'll shit 'em

[The_Gun]

Short turnaround after Lincoln, but the nature of that game means our players hopefully shouldn’t be too tired.

I’d like to see a bit of selection consistency from the gaffer. It’d be the same starting lineup, for me, assuming Toal came through his hour unscathed.