Bolton - Leeds

[Hoboh]

What Coyle said was correct we played really well in first half created chances passed it well then when things went against us we pulled it back as for Warnock they did not deserve to get a win even a draw was fortunate.

Just shows how bad they are when Coyle can play his two wingers on the wrong side for ten minutes and Leeds still couldn't do owt. Bogdan has not had a save to make (from memory) so if I was them I would be happy with a point

A game lasts 90min if I remember correctly, we had 30 out of the first 45 and probs 10-15 out of the second. That's the truth!
The reality is we should have been out of sight after the first 30 and cruised through around 70-75 mins of that game comfortably, at home, if we were serious contenders and a decently set up side!

[BWFC_Insane]

What Coyle said was correct we played really well in first half created chances passed it well then when things went against us we pulled it back as for Warnock they did not deserve to get a win even a draw was fortunate.

Just shows how bad they are when Coyle can play his two wingers on the wrong side for ten minutes and Leeds still couldn't do owt. Bogdan has not had a save to make (from memory) so if I was them I would be happy with a point

A game lasts 90min if I remember correctly, we had 30 out of the first 45 and probs 10-15 out of the second. That's the truth!
The reality is we should have been out of sight after the first 30 and cruised through around 70-75 mins of that game comfortably, at home, if we were serious contenders and a decently set up side!

You will always miss chances. However, if you score 2 you should win.

Our defending for both goals, was abysmal.

[truewhite15]

I'd like us to have won obviously. However, it's a draw. We're not Real Madrid, never will be. Maybe Petrov was on the right because their L Back was sh*t at turning inside? I'm not backing Coyle by any means, but FFS, let's support the side. SKD to the rescue again, I've seen the goals, and boy, did SKD want that second header. Who else in the side would have thrown themselves into the fray with such power and determination? The embodiment of what we used to be, full of passion, fight and that never say die attitude. But reading some of the posts on here, you'd think he scored both by deflections off his chest whilst smoking a cigar and enjoying a pint of best sat on his arse in a wheelchair.
COYW!

Yep, it's a draw. Woohoo, let's crack open the champagne. The point is, Mon Capitan, that we're supposed to be a team that's challenging for promotion. And teams that challenge for promotion don't perform as generally abysmally as we have so far. I'd have been more than happy with a draw had it come off the back of a victory, at home, against Crystal Palace. As it is, we needed the three points, and we didn't get them.

You can't look at a result just in isolation anymore. We'd have taken defeat at Burnley, had we even looked like we had a chance anywhere in the match, and had it come of the back of a promising pre-season. We'd have taken defeat at Hull, had it come off the back of three convincing performances instead of three shaky, confidence-free games. The point is that 18 months of abject shite has brought the fans to this point, and pre-season billing as promotion favourites has made it worse - as promotion favourites, we should be far more commanding than we currently are, not scraping draws and losing without a decent chance against teams who should be nowhere near us in the league.

Oh, and for the record, I thought SKD had a great game, and that he's the only striker we have right now who can claim to feel aggrieved were he dropped.

[Bruce Rioja]

Bogdan. Soo unconvincing. As Diouf rocked up to take the free kick he was stood kicking his near post, it looked in frustration at the wall, as it came across he took one step back towards the middle then watched them nod it in. I don't know if he could have got there, but he never gave himself a chance.

Harsh indeed to pick on Bogdan for that. Watch it again, Pru. Mills comes across with two attackers, one of whom scores.

A/ Who let their man go?
B/ Who the feck 'organises' us to defend set-pieces?

Had Bogdan come out he'd just have been clattered by three players diving in for the same ball.

[leyther95]

Was impressed with some parts of our game today. I think Eagles is playing superb and KD is winning a lot of ball just doesnt have much support. Afobe in my opinion would be starting in front of Ngog and Sordell he looked good alongside Kev. Back 4 well I dont want to even get started. Joke. If Coyle wants to play this 4-4-2 he has to play CYL and Eagles giving the team more width. Give the lads time the performances will come!

[norm the jedi]

and pre-season billing as promotion favourites has made it worse - as promotion favourites, we should be far more commanding than we currently are, not scraping draws and losing without a decent chance against teams who should be nowhere near us in the league.

What has this got to do with anything. Did Coyle decide we were favourites?
Or was it the same people who decided Leicester were last season.. Etc etc...

What we have is a hugely competitive league of questionable quality.. Where 19th place as of last evening was nearer top on points than bottom... Where Leeds were on a run of 4 on the bounce... Palace who scraped by us on sat went to Wolves, themselves on a run, and beat them more comfortably than they did us.. Top place Brighton ( we'd take gus poyet I suspect?) post a loss and a draw in two home games against 'lowly' opposition
To my knowledge promotion has never been decided 1- by a bookmaker or 2 in October..
We may or may not get up near the top with or without this manager... But what I can't understand is the all pervading arrogance that keeps maintaining that we only have to turn up to piss this division? Because we have the players? Well on the basis of close on two years we don't have the players.. Organisation, tactics yadda yadda yadda yadda... End of the team talk it's 11 v 11 it's about players.. And the season as hardly started.. Management is so massively over rated.. Losing Cahill an Wheater will always cost us more than keeping Coyle..

[50sQuiff]

It's just another point in the "Coyle Out" column. His substitutions make no sense. Mark Davies offered the sum total of feck all during the entire 90 minutes, and while he's played out on the "right wing" he will continue to offer feck all. Indeed, I'm beginning to think that the reason Mears looks so woefully shite is because he doesn't actually have a proper right winger backing him up; he's having to man the entire right flank by himself. The logical change, if you had to bring Petrov on, was to sub Mark Davies (I happen to think that the ACTUAL logical change would have been to swap Sparky for Chungy...), and move Eagles onto the left flank. Spearing and Andrews were both having fairly good games, and were energetic with it. It didn't make sense to weaken the midfield further by removing its one defensive link.

I just can't believe that he still hasn't spotted that our best formation is a flexible 4-5-1. A 4-4-2 is ridiculously rigid and regimented, and it cannot be played with players who don't have the same qualities in their locker. A 4-5-1 would bolster the midfield and the defence when we're being attacked, with the flexibility to become a 4-3-3 when we're attacking, with the wingers joining the lone front man.

I thought Mears has done OK both these home games but he was much more effective once he had Eagles on the right. Eagles found space, Mears kept finding him and it worked quite well towards the end. As much as I want to like Mark Davies and have that kind of footballer in the side, he had a shocker yesterday. But then I thought Andrews and Spearing weren't great either.

I'd like us to have won obviously. However, it's a draw. We're not Real Madrid, never will be. Maybe Petrov was on the right because their L Back was sh*t at turning inside? I'm not backing Coyle by any means, but FFS, let's support the side. SKD to the rescue again, I've seen the goals, and boy, did SKD want that second header. Who else in the side would have thrown themselves into the fray with such power and determination? The embodiment of what we used to be, full of passion, fight and that never say die attitude. But reading some of the posts on here, you'd think he scored both by deflections off his chest whilst smoking a cigar and enjoying a pint of best sat on his arse in a wheelchair.
COYW!

Would you prefer people to censor their opinions? I support the team too Pirate. My point wasn't that Coyle is clueless because we know that already. I found it more interesting that the players themselves tried to reverse his obviously incorrect decision. That's quite telling isn't it?

I agree with you about Davo. He was poor against Palace but brilliant against Leeds. We overworked him though. Due to lack of confidence our players always take the low-risk long-ball option and it's severely limiting our success. KD is the 'facilitator' of that play so I can see why people might be frustrated with him starting every game.

Rather than start Kev every game I think Sordell needs a run in the side. He has the highest potential to score goals in this league. Coming on with 15 to go on the odd occasion isn't going to help his confidence or our predicament. For example, N'Gog has now played 38 times for us and scored three goals. I'm not saying we should give Sordell 40 games but four or five starts shouldn't be out of the question.

[superjohnmcginlay]

They put the bitter up 20p the bastards.

I'd forgotten how shite the weather gets near the ground. Almost drowned.

[BWFC_Insane]

and pre-season billing as promotion favourites has made it worse - as promotion favourites, we should be far more commanding than we currently are, not scraping draws and losing without a decent chance against teams who should be nowhere near us in the league.

What has this got to do with anything. Did Coyle decide we were favourites?
Or was it the same people who decided Leicester were last season.. Etc etc...

What we have is a hugely competitive league of questionable quality.. Where 19th place as of last evening was nearer top on points than bottom... Where Leeds were on a run of 4 on the bounce... Palace who scraped by us on sat went to Wolves, themselves on a run, and beat them more comfortably than they did us.. Top place Brighton ( we'd take gus poyet I suspect?) post a loss and a draw in two home games against 'lowly' opposition
To my knowledge promotion has never been decided 1- by a bookmaker or 2 in October..
We may or may not get up near the top with or without this manager... But what I can't understand is the all pervading arrogance that keeps maintaining that we only have to turn up to piss this division? Because we have the players? Well on the basis of close on two years we don't have the players.. Organisation, tactics yadda yadda yadda yadda... End of the team talk it's 11 v 11 it's about players.. And the season as hardly started.. Management is so massively over rated.. Losing Cahill an Wheater will always cost us more than keeping Coyle..

Coyle himself said we had a squad "full of quality" and that anything other than promotion would be "failure".

The bit in bold is the most ridiculous thing I've heard. If thats the case why are West Ham, currently a mixture of former BWFC players who "were deemed not good enough here", Andy Carroll - oft derided on here and players who were relegated from the premiership two seasons ago, currently in the top half of the premiership.

Management is the single most important thing at a football club.

We have a shite one. And its crippling us.

[CrazyHorse]

And the season as hardly started..

We've played 20% of the season. Hardly started came and went weeks ago.

[CAPSLOCK]

Bogdan. Soo unconvincing. As Diouf rocked up to take the free kick he was stood kicking his near post, it looked in frustration at the wall, as it came across he took one step back towards the middle then watched them nod it in. I don't know if he could have got there, but he never gave himself a chance.

Harsh indeed to pick on Bogdan for that. Watch it again, Pru. Mills comes across with two attackers, one of whom scores.

A/ Who let their man go?
B/ Who the feck 'organises' us to defend set-pieces?

Had Bogdan come out he'd just have been clattered by three players diving in for the same ball.

I was more concerned by the fact the wall wouldn't move when he directed them

[truewhite15]

and pre-season billing as promotion favourites has made it worse - as promotion favourites, we should be far more commanding than we currently are, not scraping draws and losing without a decent chance against teams who should be nowhere near us in the league.

What has this got to do with anything. Did Coyle decide we were favourites?
Or was it the same people who decided Leicester were last season.. Etc etc...

What we have is a hugely competitive league of questionable quality.. Where 19th place as of last evening was nearer top on points than bottom... Where Leeds were on a run of 4 on the bounce... Palace who scraped by us on sat went to Wolves, themselves on a run, and beat them more comfortably than they did us.. Top place Brighton ( we'd take gus poyet I suspect?) post a loss and a draw in two home games against 'lowly' opposition
To my knowledge promotion has never been decided 1- by a bookmaker or 2 in October..
We may or may not get up near the top with or without this manager... But what I can't understand is the all pervading arrogance that keeps maintaining that we only have to turn up to piss this division? Because we have the players? Well on the basis of close on two years we don't have the players.. Organisation, tactics yadda yadda yadda yadda... End of the team talk it's 11 v 11 it's about players.. And the season as hardly started.. Management is so massively over rated.. Losing Cahill an Wheater will always cost us more than keeping Coyle..

I would counter that you're massively UNDERRATING management. If management means less than the players on the pitch, then why have a manager at all? If, as soon as the players go out on the pitch, all the decisions and tactics are up to them, then what's the point in doing training? Why have all the teams that have played under Allardyce played exactly the same way if there's no correllation between management and performance? Why do players play worse under one manager than they do under another if the manager has no effect?

[truewhite15]

and pre-season billing as promotion favourites has made it worse - as promotion favourites, we should be far more commanding than we currently are, not scraping draws and losing without a decent chance against teams who should be nowhere near us in the league.

What has this got to do with anything. Did Coyle decide we were favourites?
Or was it the same people who decided Leicester were last season.. Etc etc...

What we have is a hugely competitive league of questionable quality.. Where 19th place as of last evening was nearer top on points than bottom... Where Leeds were on a run of 4 on the bounce... Palace who scraped by us on sat went to Wolves, themselves on a run, and beat them more comfortably than they did us.. Top place Brighton ( we'd take gus poyet I suspect?) post a loss and a draw in two home games against 'lowly' opposition
To my knowledge promotion has never been decided 1- by a bookmaker or 2 in October..
We may or may not get up near the top with or without this manager... But what I can't understand is the all pervading arrogance that keeps maintaining that we only have to turn up to piss this division? Because we have the players? Well on the basis of close on two years we don't have the players.. Organisation, tactics yadda yadda yadda yadda... End of the team talk it's 11 v 11 it's about players.. And the season as hardly started.. Management is so massively over rated.. Losing Cahill an Wheater will always cost us more than keeping Coyle..

Coyle himself said we had a squad "full of quality" and that anything other than promotion would be "failure".

The bit in bold is the most ridiculous thing I've heard. If thats the case why are West Ham, currently a mixture of former BWFC players who "were deemed not good enough here", Andy Carroll - oft derided on here and players who were relegated from the premiership two seasons ago, currently in the top half of the premiership.

Management is the single most important thing at a football club.

We have a shite one. And its crippling us.

Truewhite15 likes this post.

[Sponge]

and pre-season billing as promotion favourites has made it worse - as promotion favourites, we should be far more commanding than we currently are, not scraping draws and losing without a decent chance against teams who should be nowhere near us in the league.

What has this got to do with anything. Did Coyle decide we were favourites?
Or was it the same people who decided Leicester were last season.. Etc etc...

What we have is a hugely competitive league of questionable quality.. Where 19th place as of last evening was nearer top on points than bottom... Where Leeds were on a run of 4 on the bounce... Palace who scraped by us on sat went to Wolves, themselves on a run, and beat them more comfortably than they did us.. Top place Brighton ( we'd take gus poyet I suspect?) post a loss and a draw in two home games against 'lowly' opposition
To my knowledge promotion has never been decided 1- by a bookmaker or 2 in October..
We may or may not get up near the top with or without this manager... But what I can't understand is the all pervading arrogance that keeps maintaining that we only have to turn up to piss this division? Because we have the players? Well on the basis of close on two years we don't have the players.. Organisation, tactics yadda yadda yadda yadda... End of the team talk it's 11 v 11 it's about players.. And the season as hardly started.. Management is so massively over rated.. Losing Cahill an Wheater will always cost us more than keeping Coyle..

Coyle himself said we had a squad "full of quality" and that anything other than promotion would be "failure".

The bit in bold is the most ridiculous thing I've heard. If thats the case why are West Ham, currently a mixture of former BWFC players who "were deemed not good enough here", Andy Carroll - oft derided on here and players who were relegated from the premiership two seasons ago, currently in the top half of the premiership.

Management is the single most important thing at a football club.

We have a shite one. And its crippling us.

"Like", "+1", "Hear, hear", etc., etc.

[Leyther_Matt]

Great first 25 minutes, decent enough final 10 but the bit in the middle was pretty poor at times again.

The talk of 4-4-2 is a bit misleading as Mavies effectively plays as an extra central midfielder (not sure whether it's by design or a lack of positional awareness) which is why virtually everything goes through Eagles on the left and also why Mears is left exposed because he's virtually being expected to play in two positions by offering width in attack in Mavies' absence and then still provide security in defence.

The penalty should never have come about, it's ridiculous that left back Warnock ended up 5-10 yards to the right hand side of our goal and all stemmed from Mills ball-watching, which meant both centre halves were on the right hand side of the penalty area and Warnock had to come bombing across to make a challenge he wasn't likely to win.

If we start playing the ball in to Afobe's feet then I think he's most certainly the better option ahead of Sordell, but that would involve the rest of the side coming to terms with the fact that it is possible to have a player who has a different style to SKD ('S' returned to him after last night) and look for other ways to get the ball forward.

The situation with Petrov coming on to the right hand side was ridiculous, just cannot understand Coyle's thinking at all with that. No coincidence that we started to create more chances when he was back on the left (thanks to Eagles intervention as mentioned above).

In the scheme of things I would say we're still on something of a downward spiral and the clock is certainly ticking as to how that is rectified.

[Whookam]

and pre-season billing as promotion favourites has made it worse - as promotion favourites, we should be far more commanding than we currently are, not scraping draws and losing without a decent chance against teams who should be nowhere near us in the league.

What has this got to do with anything. Did Coyle decide we were favourites?
Or was it the same people who decided Leicester were last season.. Etc etc...

What we have is a hugely competitive league of questionable quality.. Where 19th place as of last evening was nearer top on points than bottom... Where Leeds were on a run of 4 on the bounce... Palace who scraped by us on sat went to Wolves, themselves on a run, and beat them more comfortably than they did us.. Top place Brighton ( we'd take gus poyet I suspect?) post a loss and a draw in two home games against 'lowly' opposition
To my knowledge promotion has never been decided 1- by a bookmaker or 2 in October..
We may or may not get up near the top with or without this manager... But what I can't understand is the all pervading arrogance that keeps maintaining that we only have to turn up to piss this division? Because we have the players? Well on the basis of close on two years we don't have the players.. Organisation, tactics yadda yadda yadda yadda... End of the team talk it's 11 v 11 it's about players.. And the season as hardly started.. Management is so massively over rated.. Losing Cahill an Wheater will always cost us more than keeping Coyle..

[Whookam]

I can't belive that some people are now implying that we should be happy with the situation the club finds itself in. Feck me

[truewhite15]

I can't belive that some people are now implying that we should be happy with the situation the club finds itself in. Feck me

One thing that keeps being said to me; "Did you see us in the old 4th division? No? Well, I did. Things can always be worse."

Right, so...I'm not allowed to comment because I'm too young to have see us back then, and just because things have been worse in the past, I'm not allowed to voice complaints at the current shite being served up?

[Verbal]

I appreciate that the club has had worse times that I myself have been fortunate enough to not experience.

My main concern is that on its current course the club could be bringing those days back.

[Leyther_Matt]

Would also suggest that the club's infrastructure these days wouldn't even have been dreamed about in the late 80's, and theoretically that should all be contributing to improved on-field performance. Would say dropping to the bottom division is a little far-fetched anyway.