BOLTON v THE PIE MEN

[Ianmooreslovechild]

You know the thing with coyle is he doesnt sign or like players who can defend as a whole yet he expects them to suddenly start defending collectively when needed.Yes Petrov,eagles,Mavis could do better defensively but its never really been their game so its a bit thick to expect them all to suddenly turn into fabrice muamba when we lose the ball

[bobo the clown]

Sadly, some still say that 4-4-2 is the best way to passing, attacking football.

Even worse, one of them is the manager. From The Guardian's report:

That they [Wigan] were level at that stage, however, pegged back by a fine Mark Davies strike after Gary Caldwell's header had finally put them ahead shortly before half-time, was almost ridiculous. Bolton were truly awful during the first half, and only when the manager, Owen Coyle, had made three substitutions did his side begin to look capable of taking advantage of Wigan's failure to make their superiority count .

It was not a question of the formation being at fault, said Coyle, somewhat testily, when questioned about his decision to play 4-4-2 .....

"It's not about tactics, it's about players, and the bottom line is we can't expect to play for 30 minutes in the Premier League and expect to win games. Having said that we very nearly did because after we levelled we were the team in the ascendancy – and still playing 4-4-2, the same shape as earlier in the game".

The lady is not for turning. Perhaps he is mad afterall

Then, as I said earlier ... this is his McCann moment.

We have 2 "probably won't gt anything" games, following the cup match.

If he persists in 4-4-2 I think he will be given the Megson treatment by the crowd ... and will bloody well deserve it.

That reallly will be "I know better, despite no end of evidence & the fans can go fck themselves". Which is more or less where we were with the Sheffield ginge.

[ohjimmyjimmy]

Can't believe after beating liverpool and drawing with arsenal that we're back here discussing this.
Did he think with a bit of confidence in the players it would suddenyl start working??

[lovethesmellofnapalm]

... or did the players think after beating Lpool and drawing with Arsenal that they just had to turn up to beat Wigan?

[ohjimmyjimmy]

(not after losing to Norwich so badly after those games, surely..?)

[Sponge]

That is an unbelievable stat.

Fewer than two passes a minute. fecking hell.

Sadly, some still say that 4-4-2 is the best way to passing, attacking football.

Even worse, one of them is the manager. From The Guardian's report:

That they [Wigan] were level at that stage, however, pegged back by a fine Mark Davies strike after Gary Caldwell's header had finally put them ahead shortly before half-time, was almost ridiculous. Bolton were truly awful during the first half, and only when the manager, Owen Coyle, had made three substitutions did his side begin to look capable of taking advantage of Wigan's failure to make their superiority count .

It was not a question of the formation being at fault, said Coyle, somewhat testily, when questioned about his decision to play 4-4-2 with Kevin Davies recalled up front alongside David Ngog.

"It's not about tactics, it's about players, and the bottom line is we can't expect to play for 30 minutes in the Premier League and expect to win games. Having said that we very nearly did because after we levelled we were the team in the ascendancy – and still playing 4-4-2, the same shape as earlier in the game.

"We need to defend better collectively, and if we do that we have shown we can win games. We simply have to make sure we're out of the bottom three after the last game of the season, and I remain totally convinced we can do that."

[ohjimmyjimmy]

Did we actually play for 30 minutes?
Is he including the half-time kick around they have in the dressing room against no opposition..?

[bobo the clown]

Did we actually play for 30 minutes?
Is he including the half-time kick around they have in the dressing room against no opposition..?

Maybe the first 5 minutes & then the 9 minutes after our goal. So, yes ... he must be including half-time.

[BWFC_Insane]

Did we actually play for 30 minutes?
Is he including the half-time kick around they have in the dressing room against no opposition..?

Maybe the first 5 minutes & then the 9 minutes after our goal. So, yes ... he must be including half-time.

Coyle in talking bollocks? Surely not.

Don't tell Bish he will get upset....

[thebish]

Did we actually play for 30 minutes?
Is he including the half-time kick around they have in the dressing room against no opposition..?

Maybe the first 5 minutes & then the 9 minutes after our goal. So, yes ... he must be including half-time.

Coyle in talking bollocks? Surely not.

Don't tell Bish he will get upset....

yeah - Coyle talks bollox - I have never claimed otherwise... I even started a thread to highlight the bollox that Coyle talks...

thing is - you are blinded by the bollox and the coyle into the easy identification of a simple scapegoat - and in doing so - become totally blind to any nuance or subtlety or complexity, preferring to believe that there is only one factor in play... life isn't that simple - and neither is football...

[BWFC_Insane]

Did we actually play for 30 minutes?
Is he including the half-time kick around they have in the dressing room against no opposition..?

Maybe the first 5 minutes & then the 9 minutes after our goal. So, yes ... he must be including half-time.

Coyle in talking bollocks? Surely not.

Don't tell Bish he will get upset....

yeah - Coyle talks bollox - I have never claimed otherwise... I even started a thread to highlight the bollox that Coyle talks...

thing is - you are blinded by the bollox and the coyle into the easy identification of a simple scapegoat - and in doing so - become totally blind to any nuance or subtlety or complexity, preferring to believe that there is only one factor in play... life isn't that simple - and neither is football...

You mean a bit like people did with the last bloke in charge?

[Lord Kangana]

Yeah, but he was a complete c*nt. Exception that poves the rule and all that.

[BWFC_Insane]

Yeah, but he was a complete c*nt. Exception that poves the rule and all that.

Perhaps. But then plenty have described Coyle in the same way...

As an aside...

Coyle seems a decent enough bloke outside of his footballing decisions.

Megson, never met him but I know a few who have and they quite like him...

Sammy Lee, met him, nice guy.

All three make poor managers (or they have for us)

I know a fair few who've met Allardyce and not had a good word to say about him. Including one who was there when he called Bolton fans "ignorant and naive" whilst he was still our manager. If ever there was a c*nt....

But he was easily the best manager we've had in recent times.....hmmmm.

[Lord Kangana]

Well you've changed your tune.

But I was talking about Megson, not Allardyce.

[Andy Waller]

Did we actually play for 30 minutes?
Is he including the half-time kick around they have in the dressing room against no opposition..?

Maybe the first 5 minutes & then the 9 minutes after our goal. So, yes ... he must be including half-time.

Coyle in talking bollocks? Surely not.

Don't tell Bish he will get upset....

yeah - Coyle talks bollox - I have never claimed otherwise... I even started a thread to highlight the bollox that Coyle talks...

thing is - you are blinded by the bollox and the coyle into the easy identification of a simple scapegoat - and in doing so - become totally blind to any nuance or subtlety or complexity, preferring to believe that there is only one factor in play... life isn't that simple - and neither is football...

He is the scapegoat though. That's what he takes the huge salary to be.

I'll make a balls up of this £500,000 project I'm on and tell my boss "life isnt simple", see if it works?

[Worthy4England]

Did we actually play for 30 minutes?
Is he including the half-time kick around they have in the dressing room against no opposition..?

Maybe the first 5 minutes & then the 9 minutes after our goal. So, yes ... he must be including half-time.

Coyle in talking bollocks? Surely not.

Don't tell Bish he will get upset....

yeah - Coyle talks bollox - I have never claimed otherwise... I even started a thread to highlight the bollox that Coyle talks...

thing is - you are blinded by the bollox and the coyle into the easy identification of a simple scapegoat - and in doing so - become totally blind to any nuance or subtlety or complexity, preferring to believe that there is only one factor in play... life isn't that simple - and neither is football...

Well there is actually only one factor the counts in my opinion.

The manager is in charge - and that's where the buck stops.

That makes identification of the "scapegoat" rather easy indeed. Whilst he's Manager, he has the choice regarding his players, whether to play them, whether to sell them, whether to criticise them, whether to coach them, whether to play them in our out of position, whether not to play them because they've turned up late or their head isn't in the right frame of mind....

If he gets it right he's the Messiah, if he gets it wrong he's a very naughty boy.

Either way, wherever else you might want to apportion "blame" and find different scapegoats, there is only the one. Occasionally, I think it's fairly obvious that a player has made a cock-up - own goal, Jussi throwing it in the net against Liverpool etc.

Repeated failures to pick-up the men you've been told to pick up (as we've seen all season with the Manager laying blame at individual defenders doors) leading to repeatedly conceding from set-pieces sounds like folk are being asked to do something they can't and requires different tactics...

[lovethesmellofnapalm]

or different players- which he has indicated he, for really the first time this season , has now got available to him.
I'll criticise him if he picks Kevin Davies but not necessarily if he plays 4-4-2.

[Worthy4England]

or different players- which he has indicated he, for really the first time this season , has now got available to him.
I'll criticise him if he picks Kevin Davies but not necessarily if he plays 4-4-2.

I wouldn't necessarily criticise him for playing 4-4-2 either. I have nothing per se against 4-4-2. I'd be equally naffed with HWSNBN's 4-5-1 with 5 defensive mids in it and no attacking outlet. Recently we'd been playing 4-5-1 with a good defensive pattern, but breaking pretty rapidly (for us). So the movement from Def --> Att and vicky versa was there. We had a bad day at the office against Norwich playing 4-5-1, but similarly at home we had a bad day against them playing 4-4-2.

My view is that with this squad of players, there isn't a currently fit, 4 in midfield, that I think we can rely on, when we have Petrov and Eagles out wide and Mavis in the middle, it just puts too much pressure on NRC and our defence, (to my way of thinking).

4-4-2 with that set of 4 in midfield wasn't working.

Funny how he's managed to sub off Muamba after about 20 mins on a couple of occasions when he thought 4-5-1 wasn't working (maybe Muamba was injured for one of those occasions), but didn't think to sub Muamba on after about 20 mins on Saturday when it was fairly obvious we were getting overrun with that 4 in midfield.

[ohjimmyjimmy]

or different players- which he has indicated he, for really the first time this season , has now got available to him.
I'll criticise him if he picks Kevin Davies but not necessarily if he plays 4-4-2.

I wouldn't necessarily criticise him for playing 4-4-2 either. I have nothing per se against 4-4-2. I'd be equally naffed with HWSNBN's 4-5-1 with 5 defensive mids in it and no attacking outlet. Recently we'd been playing 4-5-1 with a good defensive pattern, but breaking pretty rapidly (for us). So the movement from Def --> Att and vicky versa was there. We had a bad day at the office against Norwich playing 4-5-1, but similarly at home we had a bad day against them playing 4-4-2.

My view is that with this squad of players, there isn't a currently fit, 4 in midfield, that I think we can rely on, when we have Petrov and Eagles out wide and Mavis in the middle, it just puts too much pressure on NRC and our defence, (to my way of thinking).

4-4-2 with that set of 4 in midfield wasn't working.

Funny how he's managed to sub off Muamba after about 20 mins on a couple of occasions when he thought 4-5-1 wasn't working (maybe Muamba was injured for one of those occasions), but didn't think to sub Muamba on after about 20 mins on Saturday when it was fairly obvious we were getting overrun with that 4 in midfield.

Was a reasonable day at the office when it was 0-0 playing 4-5-1, it was when he changed it to 4-4-2 that it all went tits-up..

[Worthy4England]

or different players- which he has indicated he, for really the first time this season , has now got available to him.
I'll criticise him if he picks Kevin Davies but not necessarily if he plays 4-4-2.

I wouldn't necessarily criticise him for playing 4-4-2 either. I have nothing per se against 4-4-2. I'd be equally naffed with HWSNBN's 4-5-1 with 5 defensive mids in it and no attacking outlet. Recently we'd been playing 4-5-1 with a good defensive pattern, but breaking pretty rapidly (for us). So the movement from Def --> Att and vicky versa was there. We had a bad day at the office against Norwich playing 4-5-1, but similarly at home we had a bad day against them playing 4-4-2.

My view is that with this squad of players, there isn't a currently fit, 4 in midfield, that I think we can rely on, when we have Petrov and Eagles out wide and Mavis in the middle, it just puts too much pressure on NRC and our defence, (to my way of thinking).

4-4-2 with that set of 4 in midfield wasn't working.

Funny how he's managed to sub off Muamba after about 20 mins on a couple of occasions when he thought 4-5-1 wasn't working (maybe Muamba was injured for one of those occasions), but didn't think to sub Muamba on after about 20 mins on Saturday when it was fairly obvious we were getting overrun with that 4 in midfield.

Was a reasonable day at the office when it was 0-0 playing 4-5-1, it was when he changed it to 4-4-2 that it all went tits-up..

Was a reasonable scoreline for us at 0-0, rather than a reasonable day at the office. Not sure I'd have put a few grand on us keeping hold of a draw after 60 mins...