Bolton 1-1 Bristol Rovers - Match Report Post 12

Thorpe likes to seek attention with his bun!

WTF was that shite all about tonight. That has to be the worst performance of the season by far. Outplayed, outfought, out thought and outclassed by bloody Bristol Rovers at home FFS. God knows how we managed to get a draw out of it,we seemed to camped in our own penalty area for virtually the whole 90 minutes. Can't wait to see Parky's explanation of this one. Dreading Saturday. We ain't going up, that's for sure.

Tweets from Iles after the match -

Jay Spearing has done his medial ligament. Bad times.

PP has just said one of Vela’s yellow cards came in Checkatrade. No suspension

PP admits short term signing possible. Jem Karacan was here tonight (Former Reading midfielder who is a free agent after being let go by Galatasary in January).

Worst performance of the season, after the first goal played too deep, Long is not a target man and we tried to play out a bit more in the second half but lacked the quality in midfield to string two passes together.

can't really add too much to the above posts really, we were poor from the minute we scored, after that it was all Bristol. They must have had 60-70% of the possession after that and again we resorted to hoofball with Long up on his own!

If Spearing is out now then we've had it if that means everyone's favourite waste of space Trotter gets more game time. The man is an embarrassment, a complete passenger in the second half, i'd rather play with 10 men than 11 if he's in the team. He is the worst midfielder we have ever had and that includes going back to Div 4 days.

Sluffy wrote:Tweets from Iles after the match -

Jay Spearing has done his medial ligament. Bad times.

Any news if it's a ML sprain (3 to 6 weeks minimum) or a full on tear (12 to 14 weeks)?

Looks like Rovers were very unlucky not to win really. -

Sluffy wrote:Looks like Rovers were very unlucky not to win really. -

Sluffy - you are being overly kind.  We looked like the Keystone Kops.  Parky has to find that defense that worked so well.  Howard's layoff has not done well for him.  We will be lucky to finish top six if we play like this.

Howard stunk up the joint. Rovers played a pretty simple tactic and we kept falling for it - play the ball in then out, then through the middle with a man making the run behind the defender as soon as the ball is played to negate a potential offside call. Their equalizer was scored using that tactic.

What's baffling is that earlier in the season we were creating decent chances but had no one to put them away....now it's all hoofball.  What's our record since Ameobi left .... that was a bigger hit than most people thought.
Parky has lost it now......but I still think we will make the payoff's......Saturday is a must win though.

terenceanne wrote:What's baffling is that earlier in the season we were creating decent chances but had no one to put them away....now it's all hoofball.  What's our record since Ameobi left .... that was a bigger hit than most people thought.
Parky has lost it now......but I still think we will make the payoff's......Saturday is a must win though.

Freudian (?) slip there Terenceanne. They've already made the payoffs - the overpaid ponces ( according to Nat) - but after last night I'm not sure that they'll make the playoffs

i was surprised Howard was so poor last night but i'll put it down to him being a bit rusty after being out for a while. 

I have doubts we'll even make the playoffs to be honest, we have no creativity in midfield and no proven goalscorer. Add that to the fact we have more games away than at home from now till the end of the season and our away form is back to normal now (shit like last season).

Am i being too negative? After last nights run around from a mid table side i just can't see us going up

Norpig wrote:i was surprised Howard was so poor last night but i'll put it down to him being a bit rusty after being out for a while. 

I have doubts we'll even make the playoffs to be honest, we have no creativity in midfield and no proven goalscorer. Add that to the fact we have more games away than at home from now till the end of the season and our away form is back to normal now (shit like last season).

Am i being too negative? After last nights run around from a mid table side i just can't see us going up

No Mr Pig- I think you're quite right. For the last month we've been more like a relegation outfit than a promotion one.
 Although we've picked up points the only glory story was against Walsall. Held at home by MK Dons and Bristol Rovers (who should have won) ,thumped by Sheffield Utd ,won against Rochdale which was a travesty, 2 down early doors against Bradford- none of this is promotion material.
Last night we were found out by  a set of journeymen who played us off the park. We still have no goal scorer and losing Spearing means that any midfield bite has disappeared. Even if we got to the playoffs we would probably lose as we've spiralled back down to where we were last season-clueless, lacklustre and unimaginative.
I'm more negative than you about the prognosis

rammywhite wrote:

Norpig wrote:i was surprised Howard was so poor last night but i'll put it down to him being a bit rusty after being out for a while. 

I have doubts we'll even make the playoffs to be honest, we have no creativity in midfield and no proven goalscorer. Add that to the fact we have more games away than at home from now till the end of the season and our away form is back to normal now (shit like last season).

Am i being too negative? After last nights run around from a mid table side i just can't see us going up

No Mr Pig- I think you're quite right. For the last month we've been more like a relegation outfit than a promotion one.
 Although we've picked up points the only glory story was against Walsall. Held at home by MK Dons and Bristol Rovers (who should have won) ,thumped by Sheffield Utd ,won against Rochdale which was a travesty, 2 down early doors against Bradford- none of this is promotion material.
Last night we were found out by  a set of journeymen who played us off the park. We still have no goal scorer and losing Spearing means that any midfield bite has disappeared. Even if we got to the playoffs we would probably lose as we've spiralled back down to where we were last season-clueless, lacklustre and unimaginative.
I'm more negative than you about the prognosis

I agree with what you are saying but the teams below the top six will have to go on good winning runs and we will totally have to bottle it....which is not beyond us I admit. We are still three games clear of 7th I believe.

Awful performance, we made Bristol look like a Championship side.

In my short lifetime I've never known a season where a Bolton team got so many get out of jail free cards.

Trouble is, earlier in the season we had a couple of players (Clough and Ameobi) that could produce that occasional bit of magic that got us three points when the most we deserved was one.

The table still looks pretty decent from our point of view, but it'll count for nothing in May unless there's some serious improvement. It's not just us, Sheffield and Scunny anymore, a number of other times are on the up.