Stuart Holden

The absence of updates on his situation leads me to think he's still a long way off match-fitness - perhaps so much so that an accurate date is still not realistically forecastable by club experts. Perhaps they can put a date on it but have chosen to not leak the information.

It is after all in their best interests to have us thinking he's going to be ready around the season start, considering they have tickets to sell and without him we are arguably potentially mediocre even at Championship level.

Maybe some posters have heard/read something I haven't on the matter?

He said in a tweet he was in the "home stretch" of his rehab.

I suspect he'll be returning around christmas personally.

Which Christmas though!

It was in the Bolton News last week that he is "penciled in or an early October return"

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I've always been convinced he will never return to Football , hope i'm wrong.

Holden will start at Burnley in August.

I've said upmteen times that you can never rely on long term injurned players. All the fans thinking Chungy & Holden will save us last season or now get us back up ...nope.
If they do come back and more importantly hit the same form... then that is a bonus. Plan a campaign without them and carry on.

terenceanne wrote:I've said upmteen times that you can never rely on long term injurned players. All the fans thinking Chungy & Holden will save us last season or now get us back up ...nope.
If they do come back and more importantly hit the same form... then that is a bonus. Plan a campaign without them and carry on.

I am somewhat inclined to agree with that, not so much without Lee because he was back before the end of last season but for me we still have a strong enough midfield to cope with the demands of the championship without holden.

terenceanne wrote:I've said upmteen times that you can never rely on long term injurned players. All the fans thinking Chungy & Holden will save us last season or now get us back up ...nope.
If they do come back and more importantly hit the same form... then that is a bonus. Plan a campaign without them and carry on.

Your right in respect to Holden, the big problem is that Coyle isn't preparing for the possibility he won't come back. People talk about us having a strong midfield, I'd disagree as at this point we're probably going to line up 4-4-2 at Burnley with Mark Davies and Keith Andrews in the middle. Mark Davies is not a central midfielder and shouldn't be asked to be, if we had a fit Holden in there I'd feel far better but at this point we don't and it doesn't seem like Coyle is in the market for anybody to cover for him (failure to replace Holden last season was one of the main reasons we got relegated for me).

Lee though is fit and match ready so we need to build the team around players like him, not worry he may get injured again.

bwfc1874 wrote:

Lee though is fit and match ready so we need to build the team around players like him, not worry he may get injured again.

I don't get this love of Lee. He's not useless, but he's far from brilliant. Little pace and ALWAYS hits the first defender with his crossing. He's probably slightly better at tracking back than Eagles, but Eagles is more dangerous in the penalty area.

Lee is a clever player, when he's at his best he can be very effective, got good feet, good coming inside and can beat a man (something Eagles struggles to do). He also tends to make the right decision when he gets in dangerous areas, again something I don't think Eagles always does. I know what you mean about his crosses but I hardly think they all hit the first man.

Obviously Lee is no Messi but he's one of the more talented players in the team, and he's technically very good you can give him the ball in a tight area and his touch and close control won't let him down. Last season was alarming in respect to how often we lost the ball through poor control or just sloppy play.

Am I right to assume you would prefer to have Eagles on the right than Lee?

bwfc1874 wrote:

Am I right to assume you would prefer to have Eagles on the right than Lee?

Lee was fantastic during his first season at the club, but seemed to get worse as each month passed.

I wouldn't be happy with either Lee or Eagles starting against Burnley, unless of course Lee finds his earlier form.

Fair enough, will have to be one of the two though, can't see Coyle bringing anyone else in unless Miyaichi comes back, who would you choose if you had to??

bwfc1874 wrote:Fair enough, will have to be one of the two though, can't see Coyle bringing anyone else in unless Miyaichi comes back, who would you choose if you had to??

I have a feeling Eagles will shine in the Championship.

If we'd finished on 8 less points in 10/11, we'd have been relegated. Holden bossed every match before his injury and so it's very arguable that had we not signed him, we'd have gone down a year earlier, the cost of which being far greater than Holden's wages, the peak of which I'm told is in the £30k region.

I won't pretend to think Holden's injury was the single reason we finished that season dreadfully because it wasn't. KDavies started very well, but was dreadful from December onwards, Elmander started very sharply, but got poorer by the game once he knew he'd be leaving in July and injuries to Mark Davies and Muamba meant we had to fill the midfield with actual strikers, left wingers and of course Tamir Cohen.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

bwfc1874 wrote:Fair enough, will have to be one of the two though, can't see Coyle bringing anyone else in unless Miyaichi comes back, who would you choose if you had to??

I have a feeling Eagles will shine in the Championship.

or soar

doffcocker wrote:If we'd finished on 8 less points in 10/11, we'd have been relegated. Holden bossed every match before his injury and so it's very arguable that had we not signed him, we'd have gone down a year earlier, the cost of which being far greater than Holden's wages, the peak of which I'm told is in the £30k region.

I won't pretend to think Holden's injury was the single reason we finished that season dreadfully because it wasn't. KDavies started very well, but was dreadful from December onwards, Elmander started very sharply, but got poorer by the game once he knew he'd be leaving in July and injuries to Mark Davies and Muamba meant we had to fill the midfield with actual strikers, left wingers and of course Tamir Cohen.

This was meant for another thread.

Apologies.

I don't accept your apology. Schoolboy error.

I don't accept your apologies either. It is a crap post and should never have been posted in the first place.

i.e. If we'd finished on 8 points less we'd have been relegated. What the hell does that mean. If we'd finished on 50points more we'd have been in Europe. Your comment is senseless bullshit. What's that about "very arguable". A new one on me is this. Does 'arguable' come in - a bit - middle - very. Either it's arguable or it isn't.

You are told that Holden's wages are £30,000. Oh yeah, you have friends on the inside do you.



You give your location as Halliwell, Smithills at a push. More crap. Are you ashamed to come from Halliwell. Why mention Smithills.Just shows what a pretentious person you are.

Butty, a bit strong. I understand what you mean, especially the Smithills bit but let's keep it friendly.