Bolton 1-3 Oxford United

Truly truly awful performance, we haven’t played well for a long long time and the past 5 matches have been again ‘lesser’ opposition. I’m starting to get fed up with it all

Whitesince63 wrote:We can pontificate all we like but it won’t change Evatt’s mind on playing his system. I’m afraid getting things wrong just seems to make him all the more intent on showing it works and proving he was right, even though we all know it won’t. Like Nat and piggy, when I saw the team sheet my heart sunk and I wasn’t one bit surprised about the outcome. Despite all his rhetoric and nonsense about players being happy being good team mates, players want to play. With Evatt, even if you come on and save the game you’re still on the bench next game making way for the same failing players who you replaced. How can any player be happy with that, I certainly wouldn’t? Unfortunately I don’t see a change but I guarantee that unless there is one before long, gates will quickly drop off. That would be all down to Evatt for me because I’m sure we do have the players needed just not played in the right positions and system, all entirely down to the manager.

I broadly agree and would add that Evatt has recruited these particular players to play an intricate attacking style which is all well and good however the opposition isn't going to stand around and watch in admiration - they're going to get amongst us and disrupt our play, outmuscle us where possible and attack with pace and numbers if they can.
We have to have battlers in every team selection and whilst it might not suit Evatt's dream of playing fantasy football it's absolutely necessary to have a chance so compromises have to be made - and until Evatt makes those compromises we'll struggle.
I can see us going to the well again in the January window.

But what if the wells dry and since all the players are under contract and we’re at maximum squad numbers we can only bring players in if others go out. I personally think we’ve got far too many players as it is so just bringing in more would only further complicate things. Despite all these players do you actually believe Evatt knows what his best team is, because I certainly don’t? A manager who has to make 5 substitutions every game smacks of panic to me and one who makes multiple changes every week confirms it. Sadly whilst we have a lot of players we have very few good ones and I’d probably only pick Lee, Dapo, Trafford and Bradley as in that class. The others are run of the mill and frankly it wouldn’t bother me if any or all of them left in the next window. Any successful team needs a good spine, a good keeper, strong CH, Box to box midfield player and a striker who actually scores. We have a good keeper but he’s not even ours, other than that we have none of those. Evatt has signed all of these players so why would we trust him to recruit any more? If I were Sharon I’d say sorry Ian but you’ve more than enough players to make top six, do your job and make them get us there. At some point Evatt has to accept the reality of the situation and accept the blame not keep passing it on to players, officials or the fans.

Whitesince63 wrote: At some point Evatt has to accept the reality of the situation and accept the blame not keep passing it on to players, officials or the fans.

I don't recall Evatt ever publicly blaming the players or fans - and often takes the blame.
He has criticised officials and with some justification on occasions.
And he has criticised "performances" - which is a backhand way of criticising the team rather than individual players  - but in general I think it's been justified at times.

If he'd gone down the road of having a dig at the players - and they all deserved it v Oxford - it would be unproductive, but he really does need to have a word off camera because they were awful - all the more irritating because we've seen them do better - which is presumably what Evatt was expecting from them when he chose the team.

I accept that lusty, to be fair he’s never come out and verbally attacked any single player, just made comments about the performance as he did this week about being naive. I think you’re using selective memory about the fans though, he’s criticised a few times for comments made though again to be fair they probably deserved it if it was abusive. I’m sure words are said behind the scenes and if they aren’t then they should be because some of what we’ve seen recently has been totally unacceptable. There comes a point where a manager has to spell that out clearly to the players involved, you can’t wrap them in cotton wool all the time. I can’t believe that this hasn’t already been done because we’ve been generally poor for a couple of months and even before the Cheltenham and FGR fiascos we were just scraping results, in fact I’m not sure we’ve actually won convincingly many times at all this season. It’s a new month so let’s hope we can put October behind us and push on but my worry is that confidence is draining from the players in both themselves and Evatt?

wanderlust wrote:
On the one hand we need to score first for a change.
On the other Kacha and Charles are our best pressers so we'll have more ball higher up the pitch and soften up their defence.
They just have create a decent chance and convert it before Oxford nick one.

First nomination for Bullshit of the Week.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:
First nomination for Bullshit of the Week.

...and yet it turned out be be so right. Oxford nicked one and we got truned over.

After that shitshow, Derby only have to beat Morecambe in their game in hand tonight to kick us out of the top six.

wanderlust wrote:
...and yet it turned out be be so right. Oxford nicked one and we got truned over.

After that shitshow, Derby only have to beat Morecambe in their game in hand tonight to kick us out of the top six.

Poor old Lusty. He could be buried in bullshit and still not know what it was he was buried in.

Happy days - Morecambe held Derby to a draw