Watford away

[CrazyHorse]

Why didnt dawson play?

Cos his name wasn't drawn out of the hat.

[BL3]

Why didnt dawson play?

Cos his name wasn't drawn out of the hat.

He's probably not 'Dougie fit'. Maybe he's planning to give him his debut in League 1 next season.

[SmokinFrazier]

The blind ones are the ones who ignored the complete shambles we'd become last October.

Had we changed it then we probably would have stayed up with the premiership millions.

Not if we'd appointed Dougie we wouldn't.

Aye lets sack him

for who BL3?

I can't speak for BL3 but I'd have far more faith in Adkins than I have in Freeman. He'd be the obvious choice for me.

[a1]

adkins

needs millions. more than the kind megson got to disguise his shitness.

#bankrupt #freenewground #stillshit

[SmokinFrazier]

Adkins spending big at Southampton doesn't mean he has to. There's no reason to suggest he can't work with a budget. Aside from that, he'd be working with a team assembled in the Premier League so it's not like he'd have to rebuild a League One side to take them to the top. We don't need investment, we need a half decent manager to get the players we have winning.

[Dr.Karl]

Why didnt dawson play?

Cos his name wasn't drawn out of the hat.

How is sticking with your outfield 10 who played well from the previous week exactly "drawing names out of a hat"? Bloke can't win, gets criticised for chopping and changing but when he sticks with the team he gets flack too. And did anyone really expect new signings that have barely played first team football to get an outing today?

As for the game, I felt we did OK for the first twenty minutes. Then frustration kicks in when we have pressure but can't create any clear cut chances. The main difference between the sides is that they looked such a threat in the final third with incisive passing and especially quick counter attacks.

Spearing, Lee and Pratley were our better players. Although I have no idea why Spearing is taking our set pieces because he has a piss poor delivery from corners and free kicks. Lee is getting back to the old footballer he was. And Dazza had the best game I've seen him play(although that isn't saying much). Even though Pratts had a good workmanlike performance he just can create that bit of magic that Mavies or Eagles can in that position.

And I think we were too quick to praise Ream, one mistake cost us. Looked liked he got turned easily and then fell on his backside and didn't have time to recover. Would like to see a replay of it though. Judging by his body language after the goal he felt like he was at fault. Crayons called it.

My cheery prediction is that Ream will disappoint again in the near future. He's too lightweight and goes under the ball too often.

Hope I'm wrong.

TBH not many positives, the main problem lies in the fact that we didn't look like scoring from open play today. And when we got set pieces we got a shit floated ball to the back stick. This lack of creativity is very concerning, I think it could be tight at the bottom and its the first time I've thought about the R word.

[CrazyHorse]

Why didnt dawson play?

Cos his name wasn't drawn out of the hat.

How is sticking with your outfield 10 who played well from the previous week exactly "drawing names out of a hat"? Bloke can't win, gets criticised for chopping and changing but when he sticks with the team he gets flack too.

Honestly, I really don't rate our Dougie like; he's still a wet behind the ears novice of a manager, but the hat thing was meant as a joke.

I mean, he probably really drew them out of a bucket. Or maybe they just threw darts at a list of names, I dunno.

[davroduk]

Closer to relegation "again" than promotion.
It hurts me to say that I predicted last year that the club would "drop like a stone through the divisions" if relegated, and my prediction is comming true.
Take off your "Rose tinted glasses"
"Wake up and smell the feckin coffee"
Div one is a reallistic option.

[thebish]

The blind ones are the ones who ignored the complete shambles we'd become last October.

Had we changed it then we probably would have stayed up with the premiership millions.

Not if we'd appointed Dougie we wouldn't.

Aye lets sack him

for who BL3?

I can't speak for BL3 but I'd have far more faith in Adkins than I have in Freeman. He'd be the obvious choice for me.

but surely you can see that's just looney-la-la land - we are not about to sack Freedman...

[SmokinFrazier]

but surely you can see that's just looney-la-la land - we are not about to sack Freedman...

Apologies about the typo, I installed a new keyboard on my phone which has an annoying auto-correct.

The problem we have is that relegation is not an option. If we go down this year, it will cripple the club, just like it did to Southampton, Leeds and others who are bigger than us. We will lose all our quality players, and we'll be left with those on high wages who nobody else will take. We will be forced to recruit far lesser players with money which simply won't there. TV money will be even less significant than it is in the Championship, attendances will be greatly down, merchandising will be down, there won't be any foreign investment.

The question is, can we afford to allow this to continue?

I'm not - and never have - called for Freedman to be sacked but the fact is, with our current form, we are going down. Our form is the third worst in the league and if that continues, our club will be financially ruined. Are you happy to keep on saying "Freedman will sort it out" when all the signs are opposite to that? I'm not sure I'm happy to take that risk. Our club will be destroyed if we go down and it's a sign of Freedman's lack of managerial ability that we're drifting towards the relegation zone at such an alarmingly fast rate.

Everyone on this board should be contemplating the idea of sacking Freedman. Maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't, but can we really afford another Coyle scenario where people say "it'll be fine" which ultimately results in relegation? No, we can't.

And there's nothing "looney-la-la" about it. We have appointed a manager who was meant to get us promoted, and we're three points away from the relegation zone. He is massively failing at his job. There is plenty of reason to think about replacing him. What would be crazy is watching our club fall quickly down the table whilst being completely ignorant to the threat of relegation, and the ruin that it carries.

[Bijou Bob]

Sorry Smokin but that's utter bollocks for me. Freedman needs at least a season to clear out the dross and change things around. He has brought in a number of players and got rid of very few so far. Changing a manager between now and the end of the season wouldn't help at all. The players we have need time to adapt their style of play to his methods, the new guys have to be allowed time to bed in. We're not going down, a single win of the game in hand sees us rise several places and just a couple of back to back wins would see us clear.

Can I see those wins coming? Yes I can, but getting on the managers back after a few months won't help. This season is already something of a washout. Sometimes, as a supporter you have to accept that things have to change and that those changes will take time. For years we have boxed above our weight. We've had our time in the sun, but this is our level as a club, to think anything else for me is somewhat deluded.

[SmokinFrazier]

Sorry Smokin but that's utter bollocks for me. Freedman needs at least a season to clear out the dross and change things around. He has brought in a number of players and got rid of very few so far. Changing a manager between now and the end of the season wouldn't help at all. The players we have need time to adapt their style of play to his methods, the new guys have to be allowed time to bed in. We're not going down, a single win of the game in hand sees us rise several places and just a couple of back to back wins would see us clear.

A manager shouldn't need to rebuild a team before he's judged though. We didn't say "let's give Sammy Lee a season, so he can create his own team", because you expect a good manager to be able to work with what he's got. That's their job. You won't find a single Chelsea fan who is saying "Don't be harsh on Benitez, let him build his own squad". They aren't paid to do that, their job is to turn things around with the team and resources they've got. The challenge wasn't forced onto Freedman, he willingly accepted it because he thought we had more potential than we've got.

I agree that the players maybe need time to adjust, but this isn't rocket science here. We have plenty of experienced internationals in a team who have mostly been together for a while, playing 4-5-1 or 4-4-2. It's not like Freedman is trying to bring in catenaccio or something like that.

Changing managers isn't ideal but neither is relegation. I don't want to see Freedman sacked because I quite like him and I think it'll work out alright in the long term. The problem is though, we need results now. Relegation would change Bolton in an enormous, incomprehensible way. We'd be looking at financial disaster, for a start. The form we're in right now has took us to near the relegation zone and if we continue as we are, we will go down. That needs to be prevented at all costs, so even if Freedman might work out ok in the long term, he'd have to go before then, just like Coyle should have gone before we were relegated.

Can I see those wins coming? Yes I can, but getting on the managers back after a few months won't help. This season is already something of a washout. Sometimes, as a supporter you have to accept that things have to change and that those changes will take time. For years we have boxed above our weight. We've had our time in the sun, but this is our level as a club, to think anything else for me is somewhat deluded.

We built a side capable of being in the Premier League. The size of our club is irrelevant, really. The squad that we have now was mostly assembled in the top league in the world, and yet "our level" is supposedly hovering around the relegation spots to get into League 1? Not at all.

We are massively underperforming this year. Both Coyle and Freedman have proven themselves incapable of getting the best out of this squad. Coyle failed, and we rightly got rid of him. If Freedman continues to fail, he has to go too. Survival on it's own is not enough, we need to see signs of proper improvement and so far, we haven't seen that.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I know what you're saying, SF, but it's hard to do tooth whitening with one hand when you're doing the necessary root canal work with the other.

Obviously I'm disappointed with the results he's had, but I do believe he inherited a real shambles and that he's taking us in the right direction. I don't think for a second that we're in any real danger of being dragged into a relegation fight.

[cecil.bob]

Sorry Smokin but that's utter bollocks for me. Freedman needs at least a season to clear out the dross and change things around.

I think we all kind of gave up on promotion a few months ago, and Dougie can have his season to get his shit together and get the players functioning. He cannot be allowed to take us down though. League one is not an option.

[boltonboris]

I know what you're saying, SF, but it's hard to do tooth whitening with one had when you're doing the necessary root canal work with the other.

Obviously I'm disappointed with the results he's had, but I do believe he inherited a real shambles and that he's taking us in the right direction. I don't think for a second that we're in any real danger of being dragged into a relegation fight.

I agree that he took on a shambles of a squad, but I don't agree that we're now moving in the right direction. We're 20th. We were 16th. I think I'm right in thinking after the same number of games that Dougie has had, we've won less games than Coyle did last season in a higher division

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I know what you're saying, SF, but it's hard to do tooth whitening with one had when you're doing the necessary root canal work with the other.

Obviously I'm disappointed with the results he's had, but I do believe he inherited a real shambles and that he's taking us in the right direction. I don't think for a second that we're in any real danger of being dragged into a relegation fight.

I agree that he took on a shambles of a squad, but I don't agree that we're now moving in the right direction. We're 20th. We were 16th. I think I'm right in thinking after the same number of games that Dougie has had, we've won less games than Coyle did last season in a higher division

I'll bet you any money you like that we'll be higher than 16th by the end of the season. At I feel I can see what DF is trying to do when he does it, and that it not something I always thought about OC.

[BWFC_Insane]

If people are talking about a 'disaster' the only real disaster was going down last season and losing 60M quids worth of income. That was the real disaster. Going down to league one will be terrible, but financially less damaging. Clearly the damage was done in not ripping out Coyle last October. But then I believe SmokingFrasier was one who wanted to keep Coyle.

As for now we need to start picking up some points. But I strongly agree with Mummy that we Dougie has a long term plan to turn things around and ultimately change how we play and operate as a club. Personally I have faith in that. And I'm not at this moment prepared to think about sacrificing that for some short term gain, that may never materialise anyhow.

This season has been desperately dissapointing. All we can do now is rally behind them hope that we do enough to stay up and that Dougie's plan takes us forward from there.

These are testing times but sometimes you need to go through those to get to something better!

[CrazyHorse]

That's a huge amount of faith you've got in Dougie's ability to turn this around if you're prepared to be relegated before we start seeing the results of his long term plan, and I really can't see what he's done either here or a Palace to deserve that faith.

No matter how you sugarcoat it, going down again will be a disaster. A League 1 club with more than £100mil of debt and crowds of ten thousand isn't the recipe for long term sustainability.

[bobo the clown]

Simon Charlton appears to have hit the real issue on the head yesterday. The group aren't untalented but they've 'got used to losing', have no natural leaders, allow a set-back to overwhelm them, have little fight. That's why we lose so many leads, we rarely pull back once we're behind, we let so many late or early goals in and so often very soon after we score.

Coyle changed our mindset. Our manager, whoever that is, has to alter that. Which is easier said than done. Cptn. Chaos did one hell of a job on us.

The Allardyce years weren't always pretty but you could never have said these things.

[IggyTheDawgster]

Just watched the highlights on LOVS, Ream deffo at fault for their first, Fell on his arse with no one around, Leaving their man an easy route into the box and past Bogdan.

For their second, Take your pick of FOUR bolton players around the lad who dinked it in for their guy to score, Absolute mess of defending.

This season is not going to end well.