The Trotters v The Potters

[Bruce Rioja]

Knight is just going through an awful spell but again

That'll be a career-spanning "awful spell" then.

[thebish]

Skinflints?

We're 100+ million in debt

You vote labour, don'tyou

No I vote tory.

bloody tory voters eh, CAPS!

[HMX]

I refuse to be overly negative, although it was another poor performance.

We're still in a decent-ish place in the league but the squad is stretched and it's showing.

[Peter Thompson]

Let's be honest we've clearly over achieved this season and been quite lucky IMO apart from 3 or 4 very good high tempo encouraging performances and it was very good while it lasted, but its no surprise that the bubbles burst and we are now struggling with this current average group of players. OC is a good motivator (not that good a tactician) and has brought the feel good factor back to the club. But the squad of players is still almost the same as last season and not good enough. Elmander & Holden played brilliant at the start of the season which helped us get points on the board, but obviously they can't sustain that form, and we still don't play that much football and we still aimlessly hoof it far to much.

We desperately need 2 or 3 new faces otherwise we will slide and finish 15th / 16th with this current squad, IMO Jussi is past it (he's actually fast becoming a liability), Taylor is still poor and Muamba is clearly not a premiership football player (he is incapable of trapping & passing a football), and I have to say that as with Jussi this has to be K Davies's last season, if we are to ever improve he has to go, why OC never substitutes him is behond me he has far more awful games than good games.

We are still crying out for pace, creativity & movement, look at the difference that Moreno makes when he comes on....OC needs to change personnel & quickly !

[BWFC_Insane]

Some of the comments on here though are stupid.

"Manager lost his touch".

Fook off. We're going through a difficult period and have had tough fixtures especially away. But end of the day football is fine margins and we're falling on the wrong side of them at the moment and thats in a bit of luck and also performances. Lets remember West Brom outplayed us but we won 2-0 and Blackburn deserved at least a point.

Stoke are a good side at home, barely concede a goal. We're struggling and the small squad clearly needs some help.

But this run was inevitable as I pointed out before we got into it. We just need to snap out of it, once we've cleared Chelsea as we know we never get owt off them at the Reebok.

[Whookam]

I refuse to be overly negative, although it was another poor performance.

We're still in a decent-ish place in the league but the squad is stretched and it's showing.

We're within 5 points of 14th place and the majority of teams below us have games in hand. It's a false position, how much of a false position depends on other teams.

[Ianmooreslovechild]

Better 2nd half but never looked like scoring even when we worked good positions.Knight had one of his senior days. Elmander and Davies don't seem able to get infront of a defender when the ball comes in from out wide.Seems a long way from what we were doing in oct/nov. More like the kind of performance we had in the 1st months after coyle arrived when we were struggling for goals.
As many said above lack of depth means no options when Knight plays poorly/Holden is half fit and Elmander /Davies look about as dangerous as Frank Spencer in a dressing gown.

[Worthy4England]

We've got a small squad and its showing.

Isn't this what happens to us every December/January as I predicted?

You can't get by without cover up front when Klasnic is out, or when we have no defensive cover whatsoever, and the midfield is equally sparse.

We need fresh legs to inject some life, Holden looked not quite fit today. If we had a decent option he'd not be playing IMO.

Muamba and Mark Davies are both equally shite IMO.

Knight is just going through an awful spell but again, we have nobody pushing him from the bench, no options to replace him. Big test for Coyle this, we can't go through January with the whole "we don't need players we'll not overpay" attitude if he wants to stay out of the bottom 7 or 8. If he's happy for a 14th place finish then fine but if we're striving for better than Megson did we're going to have to get some money spent and Coyle is going to have to make some big decisions and stop bottling it IMO!

Looking from (possibly) Eddie Davies' point of view. We're not going to make Champs League, we lose money in the Euro League, anywhere between 17th and 8th/9th is probably good, with the emphasis on 8th/9th rather than 17th.

I don't agree that Muamba and Mark Davies are equally shite. I really don't know why/what Mark Davies is in the team for at the minute - mind you I've always wondered to be honest - and whilst I agree Muamba hasn't played well for a few games now, he's still (I think) the third highest midfield tackler in the Prem.

A lot of poor performances out there today and probably the wrong tactics against Stoke, who we rarely do well in the air against.

[Ianmooreslovechild]

Mark davis had a few moments where he looked sharp and incisive. Muamba,yes covers a lot of ground and wins the ball,its just a shame he nearly always seems to give the ball back again. He doesn't just break up the opposition play,he breaks up play full stop.As has been said before he'd be great in a defensive mid role but its not the sysyem we play.

[Montreal Wanderer]

Zat Knight is fecking shite. Always has been - always will be. Fin!

Yes, and according to himself earlier this week he is playing the best football of his career. Oh my!

[hisroyalgingerness]

The table doesn't look great in that once folk catch up on games we're likely to slip a few places, with some of the bigger guns finding their form and looking to rise above the likes of us. We've got another tough game coming up that we're not due to take many points from if history is anything to go by.

I'd love to see a stat of our results when scored first vs conceded first. When we score early we look unbeatable at times. And if we concede, we struggle like mad to break down organised defences - with no movement and no one with a real knack of unlocking defences.

Stoke, on the face of it probably wasn't a place we expected to get much from. But the curse of Manager of the Month has well and truly settled in and since end Nov and that win over Newcastle we've looked suspiciously like the team Megson got sacked for creating.

[Ianmooreslovechild]

The big difference is the 2nd half cavalry charge that was working then doesn't seem to be working now. Perhaps we should try playing for 90 minutes some time.

[BWFC_Insane]

We've got a small squad and its showing.

Isn't this what happens to us every December/January as I predicted?

You can't get by without cover up front when Klasnic is out, or when we have no defensive cover whatsoever, and the midfield is equally sparse.

We need fresh legs to inject some life, Holden looked not quite fit today. If we had a decent option he'd not be playing IMO.

Muamba and Mark Davies are both equally shite IMO.

Knight is just going through an awful spell but again, we have nobody pushing him from the bench, no options to replace him. Big test for Coyle this, we can't go through January with the whole "we don't need players we'll not overpay" attitude if he wants to stay out of the bottom 7 or 8. If he's happy for a 14th place finish then fine but if we're striving for better than Megson did we're going to have to get some money spent and Coyle is going to have to make some big decisions and stop bottling it IMO!

Looking from (possibly) Eddie Davies' point of view. We're not going to make Champs League, we lose money in the Euro League, anywhere between 17th and 8th/9th is probably good, with the emphasis on 8th/9th rather than 17th.

I don't agree that Muamba and Mark Davies are equally shite. I really don't know why/what Mark Davies is in the team for at the minute - mind you I've always wondered to be honest - and whilst I agree Muamba hasn't played well for a few games now, he's still (I think) the third highest midfield tackler in the Prem.

A lot of poor performances out there today and probably the wrong tactics against Stoke, who we rarely do well in the air against.

Agree that Muamba has to start ahead of Mark Davies who runs, runs, runs, falls over and gives it away far too often to make a real impact.

But I still think we need another option in midfield, someone with energy and ideally just a smidgeon more footballing ability than Muamba. To an extent our game is built around closing down, being high tempo, not letting the opposition settle and that requires legs. Clearly the christmas period has taken its toll on a small squad.

Thing is from the sound of things its Coyle himself who is unprepared to risk spending money currently not Eddie Davies. Coyle needs to make some big decisions this January as he's probably never been in this position as a manager. Fine balance between overspending and letting momentum slip. If we end up on 43 points in 15th position then people might start asking some questions of him, especially if it keeps getting written that he is being "cautious" over spending money. Not saying I'd agree with that, just pointing out that he's under some pressure possibly for the first real time in his career!

[Ianmooreslovechild]

And I wish the likes of Knight and Elmo would stop being so bloody nice all the time.Cuddling opponents and having a laugh with them. They're the fecking enemy lads. Man up for fecks sake

[RobbieSavagesLeg]

One of my gripes today was midfield, Mavis and Holden.
They weren't running at Stoke at all, just passing square and backwards, letting our fullbacks do the dribbling forward and crossing or hoofing it into the wind which obviously wasn't a good idea early on but still persisted. This season we've looked much better and scored more goals from running at defenses.

Another thing I noticed was Muamba gets himself into space quite well, but t'others won't pass to him, as though they've been instructed not to - maybe because he's just a break-up player.

Totally not miffed with the season so far, we're in a better position with more points than I imagined, just our form of late is terrible.

Moreno looks better each game, and Petrov looked interested for once too.

[Worthy4England]

I'd love to see a stat of our results when scored first vs conceded first. When we score early we look unbeatable at times. And if we concede, we struggle like mad to break down organised defences - with no movement and no one with a real knack of unlocking defences.

This season - Scored first 12 times - W7 D4 L1
Conceded first 9 times - W0 D4 L5

[HMX]

I refuse to be overly negative, although it was another poor performance.

We're still in a decent-ish place in the league but the squad is stretched and it's showing.

We're within 5 points of 14th place and the majority of teams below us have games in hand. It's a false position, how much of a false position depends on other teams.

Sure, I agree but we have 30 points and have 15 games left. Not doing too badly at all

[Hoboh]

Mandy ain't getting enough chances to put one of them away at the moment

Davo should leave twitter alone and go to bed before 2am also he must surely be taken off if it ain't working as today I reckon Petrov up front today instead of davo second half (with a free role to work across the line) would have worried the hell out of stoke

Moo needs time out but we are short

We urgently need cover for Knight when his dizzy period starts

We've missed Holden (not looking 100% today) and our dangerous outlet Ronaldo...........sorry chungy (funny how Rodders livens things up too)

Need a few good wins soon some of the natives are doubting Coyle and I will brain the first one who starts chanting for Megson back!

[newboy]

Skinflints?

We're 100+ million in debt

You vote labour, don'tyou

No I vote tory.

so it#s all your fault then

[Peter Thompson]

We've got a small squad and its showing.

Isn't this what happens to us every December/January as I predicted?

You can't get by without cover up front when Klasnic is out, or when we have no defensive cover whatsoever, and the midfield is equally sparse.

We need fresh legs to inject some life, Holden looked not quite fit today. If we had a decent option he'd not be playing IMO.

Muamba and Mark Davies are both equally shite IMO.

Knight is just going through an awful spell but again, we have nobody pushing him from the bench, no options to replace him. Big test for Coyle this, we can't go through January with the whole "we don't need players we'll not overpay" attitude if he wants to stay out of the bottom 7 or 8. If he's happy for a 14th place finish then fine but if we're striving for better than Megson did we're going to have to get some money spent and Coyle is going to have to make some big decisions and stop bottling it IMO!

Very good & accurate post BWFCI....at the moment our football on the pitch is not much different to how we played under Megson - lethargic & a slow tempo with plenty aimless hoofing thrown in (especially from Knight....), OC needs to now step up and make some brave big decisions, like dropping Jussi, KD & Taylor and try hard to bring in the 'elusive' quality pacy creative midfielder (how many times has that been said over the past few years !!), IMO we can't continue to play Elmander & KD upfront, we desperately need variety & pace up front to give opposing defenders something to think about, at the moment we are very predicatable....

OC rightly took the praise & enjoyed the support from the fans when we were playing well, but he now should accept some of the blame for this awful spell and changes need to be made & new faces brought in asap