Freedman out!

[newcarsmell]

The only thing I like about Pulis is his no nonsense style. Other than that I am struggling. It worries me how much money he had a Stoke without doing much. He had a net spend of 100 million at Stoke and had many seasons around the bottom half.

Is that a lot ? over 7 years ?

It's always a bonus to make money on transfers, but not many premier league teams do. I think most smaller clubs would see that as a reasonable price to pay to keep their premier league status.

Megson spent a sh*tload in the 2 years he was here and that was only offset by the money he got for Nolan & Anelka who he inherited from Fat Sam.

Stoke sent us down and embarrassed us at Wembley ..so it's only right Pulis is given the rest of the season on no money to get us back up.

It is a lot yes when he spent more than both Spurs and Arsenal.

As for embarrassing us, we reversed that back at the Bok not long after beating them 5-0. Also they sent us down by a joke goal from Walters and a dive from Crouch. If that merits him getting the job then the game is fecked.

I was joking.. apart from the financials. I'm not defending Pulis's spending or particularly want him to manage our club but just pointing out that smaller premier league clubs need to spend. Fat Sam did an amazing job in the transfer market but even he admits, those days are over. He's spent a huge amount of money at West Ham and tbf it's all about keeping them in the prem.

[newcarsmell]

Majorly off topic but..

..Just done a search for Sam and Google have his children listed as Craig Allardyce and Blessing Kaku..

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=sam+allardyce" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Sponge]

Douglas:

"I think my job is very safe. I don't ignore speculation surrounding my job but I don't feel the pressure of it," said the Bolton boss.

"When you've been in the game for so long you learn to deal with speculation about being sacked. It doesn't faze me at all and it's my job to take the blame away from my players.

"I understand more than anyone exactly what we have to do to turn things around. We need a couple of players in on loan and time to gel as a team."

So now we DO need more players (such comments must make the players we currently have feel great). And apparently, despite a full pre-season, they still need time to "gel as a team". Platitudes. Meaningless soundbites. He's lost it. He's not got a clue what to do to change things. And yet I don't think it's wholly his fault. It's bigger, deeper.

[Aanvalluh]

Could/would Bolton afford/want/get Darren Ferguson??

[Prufrock]

Keep the faith


#Dougiecool.

If Freedman had made those comments and we were top folk would be loving him. We're not, but that's the reason to criticise him, not coz his interviews are shit

[CrazyHorse]

Where's our record breaking shitness at now then? Worst start since the nineteenth century yet?

Actually I think it's something like worst start since 1743. Be reet though cos we had a really crap pre-season that year too, but thankfully they don't mean anything.

[TANGODANCER]

I really can't see our present problems being sorted out by loanees. How does that help to solidify us as a team? Apart from being bad for morale, what's the use of temporarily papering over cracks when it's plain to see the wall's falling down? With the current money situation, I've no idea what the solution is, but shxt, it's worrying. Matches aren't fun any more.

[Bruce Rioja]

But papering over the cracks,as you say, is our only current option, Tango.

[MeMcMe]

Don't post here much anymore, but often come to lurk. Was never much of a regular but made even less of a habit of posting since I got p*ssed off with the behaviour of arsehole Spurs fans during the FA Cup replay 2 years ago and insulted some non-arsehole Spurs fans. But when someone mentions Darren Ferguson and Bolton in the same sentence, nothing else matters. I'd simply have to stop watching football if such a scenario came to pass. Couldn't support anybody else, but couldn't support a team led by such an abysmal, abominable human being. Not without wearing a hairshirt the entire time, at least. No thanks.

As for Dougie's post-match comments... he's signed Spearing, Moritz, Beckford, Fraser, Hall, Tierney, Baptiste, Wilkinson, White, Butterfield, De Ridder, Medo, Bolger, Dawson, Gregus, Davies, and another Butterfield since joining the club, as far as I know. The Good: Dawson was great. How long's he going to live off that one for? Tierney and Baptiste are defenders (that's a positive, right? He doesn't pay that area much attention). Medo, sometimes. Spearing, yay... Coyle signing, oh. Butterfield Part 1 ran around. The Bad: Beckford, Butterfield Part 2, De Ridder, Gregus and Davies were pointless/wasteful/utterly dreadful signings. Jury's out on the rest, I suppose it's good to see a manager signing youngsters/Cian Bolger. But really, how many more f**king players does he need? And what makes him think his judgement should be trusted? Honestly, there has been enough turnover now in the space of 11 months (Christ, has it only been that long?) for this to be "his" team, his squad. It reeks of Redknappism. Team is struggling through your own fault, blame your resources. Next he'll go and sign loads of players who "did a job" somewhere else he worked. Oh, wait...

[CrazyHorse]

As for Dougie's post-match comments... he's signed Spearing, Moritz, Beckford, Fraser, Hall, Tierney, Baptiste, Wilkinson, White, Butterfield, De Ridder, Medo, Bolger, Dawson, Gregus, Davies, and another Butterfield since joining the club, as far as I know. The Good: Dawson was great. How long's he going to live off that one for? Tierney and Baptiste are defenders (that's a positive, right? He doesn't pay that area much attention). Medo, sometimes. Spearing, yay... Coyle signing, oh. Butterfield Part 1 ran around. The Bad: Beckford, Butterfield Part 2, De Ridder, Gregus and Davies were pointless/wasteful/utterly dreadful signings. Jury's out on the rest, I suppose it's good to see a manager signing youngsters/Cian Bolger. But really, how many more f**king players does he need? And what makes him think his judgement should be trusted? Honestly, there has been enough turnover now in the space of 11 months (Christ, has it only been that long?) for this to be "his" team, his squad. It reeks of Redknappism. Team is struggling through your own fault, blame your resources. Next he'll go and sign loads of players who "did a job" somewhere else he worked. Oh, wait...

[Wandering Willy]

Great post that

[Wandering Willy]

Where's our record breaking shitness at now then? Worst start since the nineteenth century yet?

It'll be reet.

CAPS's mate who cleans the hair out of the plug holes in the showers at the Reebok says so.

[norm the jedi]

I vote we change our manager every 12 months regardless, the geezer with the suit and the sound bite is clearly the only difference between Bolton Wanderers and Real Madrid...
Or so you'd think from reading most of this for five minutes.. we're on our way to division three or whatever it's called now because we aren't spending the money to go in the other direction..
The manager is considerably less important than the quality of the playing staff and the statistic which most often accompanies high league position is a high wage bill..
Odd ones now and then buck the trend briefly but in the end, high wages = better players = success , whatever that is these days..
If you don't spend the money you go downwards.. attempting to go upwards whilst reducing the budget is not only counter intuitive, history suggests it'll almost never happen..
Whether Dougie Freedman or Alberto De Stefano are in charge makes little difference.. If Eddie and Co don't spend the money or find someone to come in and spend it instead we're headed in
one direction.. However often we posture about changing managers.. over a career there's not much more than a fag paper between most of em in terms of results..
Spend the money or settle at the level your investment dictates.. Right now I'd say lower mid Championship headed for League 1 in the next three seasons.. Someone else may take us there more slowly than DF but it's where we're headed any road, quicker we get there quicker we can start to build again...

[SmokinFrazier]

The money excuse is only valid if you believe that the current set of players are thoroughly inept, which I think is a long way off base. They're a good group of players for this league but they're not being guided in the right direction. Fulham and a few good French clubs want N'Gog, who our fans slag off every week, I've read countless posts from people saying that Mills is useless yet one of the best managers in the league, Brian McDermott, wanted him at Leeds. Our fans have chastised Tim Ream, yet even though he's playing out of position and without game time, he comes into the team and gets MotM two games in a row and looks solid. How many on here moaned for months about Pratley? Yet at the start of the season, he showed real class. Chungy has received many criticisms yet he's constantly been linked with other clubs. Baptiste has been called not fit to burn over the past few weeks, yet several Championship clubs wanted him, as did Palace who tried extremely hard to take him to the Premier League. People on here talked for a long time about how useless Keith Andrews was, yet he goes out on loan to a club who beat us 3-1 and some of their fans say he's been their best player this year.

Let's not talk sh*t and say that we don't have the quality. If that was the case, why would some of our most derided players show their ability elsewhere, do well in positions which don't suit them or be wanted by better clubs than us? Other managers know what is happening at Bolton. We have quality within the team but they're not being guided in the right direction. If our players were capable of nothing better, why would so many teams who are doing much better than us, be interested in those who our fans criticise each week? That doesn't add up. Had Spearing gone to Blackburn, we'd probably be reading rave reviews of his performances and kicking ourselves for not bringing him in. Had we not got Beckford, we'd be wishing we had his goal threat. If Baptiste had gone to the Premier League, we'd be wishing we had his presence in defence.

We don't have a lack of ability. That's a cop out to excuse the pathetic man management by an utterly inept manager in Freedman. Yeah, we'd all like better players at Bolton - I wish we had Messi, Falco and Ronaldo - but the fact we are at the bottom of the league is nothing to do with the managers, it's all about the clueless man who is guiding them. The Titanic was a great boat but look at what happened to that when it was being guided by the wrong person.

And let's not pretend that going into League One means we can rebuild from there. That was supposed to be the silver lining about dropping to the Championship, yet how often does that happen? Drop to League One and we're in a serious problem for a long time. Get rid of Freedman before our next match and lets have another crack at the playoffs this season. A good manager can do that, Freedman can't.

[Thor]

How about Neil Warnock to steady the ship until the end of the season?
Surely he would get the best out the current squad!

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

In your opinion what manager would suit our players and what's a proper centre forward

I haven't completely given up on Freedman but it's looking fvcking grim!

We are still as yellow as a submarine Pulis is a fighter so that would be my choice if we were to get rid.

I'm also interested in BWFCI choice of manger if we were to replace him and if he'd suit our players

A proper centre forward to me is one that can score goals on a reasonably regular basis, is able to head a ball roughly in the direction they mean to and generally makes a nuisance of themselves. There is of course more to it than that, but you get where I'm going with it

As for manager. At the time of bringing Freedman in I was one of the ones asking why. That said I've been firmly been behind him being a success and liked a few things he said he was trying to do. Whilst everything has gone to shit I don't think sacking yet another manager is the answer. I think the answer lies in getting rid of the players that don't buy into our football club. Dougie has made plenty of mistakes and I would hope Lennie is in his ear telling him to stop pissing about with the line-up. Get the players going through the motions out of the squad, even if that means playing a few YTS kids, or whatever they call 'em these days. A bit of pride and passion will bear more points right now than this lot.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

The only thing I like about Pulis is his no nonsense style. Other than that I am struggling. It worries me how much money he had a Stoke without doing much. He had a net spend of 100 million at Stoke and had many seasons around the bottom half.

Is that a lot ? over 7 years ?

It's always a bonus to make money on transfers, but not many premier league teams do. I think most smaller clubs would see that as a reasonable price to pay to keep their premier league status.

Megson spent a sh*tload in the 2 years he was here and that was only offset by the money he got for Nolan & Anelka who he inherited from Fat Sam.

Stoke sent us down and embarrassed us at Wembley ..so it's only right Pulis is given the rest of the season on no money to get us back up.

To put it in perspective, our net spend since 04/05 is 27,000,000. I believe Stoke's net spend over the same period is around 85,000,000.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Surely no one can still believe that he is the right man for the job.
People say that it would cost to much to sack him, but how much will relegation cost us ??
He has to go, and go NOW !!!!!!!!

What makes you think we still won't get relegated regardless

I agree that getting a new manager does not guarantee survival.
Sticking with this one guarantees relegation.

Don't you go hyperbolic as well. It's going to go all Sky Sports on here is everyone joins in with Insano

Hyper bollocks.
Sounds like a lot of the stuff on here.
Ok so we aint got the money to finance sacking the manager (unless Eddie wants to put more tax free money into the club)
Cmon why would anyone (even a die hard fan) put so much money into the club unless it was to his benefit.
Something has to be done, I think we are all agreed, and if the captain of th ship is steering you towards an iceberg, then someone has to have the balls to strip him of his command and steady the ship.
Feckin hell I should be in the Navy (steady, no village people comments please)
I see us heading full on towards the iceberg, so the captain should be confined to quarters, and someone else should take over command.
Or in plain English..............
GET THAT FECKIN IDIOT AWAY FROM THE STEERING WHEEL NOW !!!!!!!!!!!!

All I'm saying is that sticking with Dougie does not guarantee relegation. If BWFCi came out with that we'd be jumping on him for being all hyperbolic. Only fair to highlight the fact it is untrue for anyone else saying it.

[boltonboris]

Is there ANYBODY who still thinks he's doing a grand job? It's a good job he's sorted out this science stuff. Now his computer boffins can tell us in one's and zero's exactly how shit we are. We never quite knew the extent of our shitness, but thanks to Dougie, we've got it on lockdown.

Yay Dougie!!

[Hoboh]

Douglas:

"I think my job is very safe. I don't ignore speculation surrounding my job but I don't feel the pressure of it," said the Bolton boss.

"When you've been in the game for so long you learn to deal with speculation about being sacked. It doesn't faze me at all and it's my job to take the blame away from my players.

"I understand more than anyone exactly what we have to do to turn things around. We need a couple of players in on loan and time to gel as a team."

So now we DO need more players (such comments must make the players we currently have feel great). And apparently, despite a full pre-season, they still need time to "gel as a team". Platitudes. Meaningless soundbites. He's lost it. He's not got a clue what to do to change things. And yet I don't think it's wholly his fault. It's bigger, deeper.

Oh so it's taken a full summer, pre-season, and finding our ass on the bottem step to suss that out eh Freedman?

Just do one!

Oh and to all the Freedman is rebuilding types, can someone please point to his experience and success in this department, cause I sure as hell cannot find it!