Barnsley 2-2 Bolton

Norpig wrote:Sounds like i missed an eventful match!

#shitfan

karlypants wrote:

#shitfan

But a great gig 

How good was iredale when he came on. 

I was ready to turn it off but they proved me wrong. Great spirit.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:How good was iredale when he came on. 

I was ready to turn it off but they proved me wrong. Great spirit.

This is why I went off for a shower at 2 nil down. Thought the game was pretty much over at that point.

Came out and we hadmgot one back so it was game on so sat back down with a cup a soup.

Hope it is as entertaining when I go down to Derby!

And yet again another two-half display - rubbish first half followed by a second half were nobody can play with us.  Why o why can't we play 90 minutes.  We would be out of sight, but it seems like we want to do it the hard way. Fooking around at the back cost us the first goal......you would think that has to stop but it won't. 
Anyhow onwards COYWM.

He'll not change his ways TA, he said as much in his interview after last nights game.

Norpig wrote:He'll not change his ways TA, he said as much in his interview after last nights game.

So we will always be starting off on the back foot then.

I’m getting to the point where it is a manager change that is needed!

Its the way he likes to play, he thinks us keeping possession tires out the other team. Trouble is teams know about this now and press us as soon as the keeper passes it out, just like Barnsley's first goal last night.

Norpig wrote:Its the way he likes to play, he thinks us keeping possession tires out the other team. Trouble is teams know about this now and press us as soon as the keeper passes it out, just like Barnsley's first goal last night.

Exactly right?

Why does EVANS persist in being so thick.

He makes my blood boil with his  stupidity, why  can he not see what is happening ?

That first goal was a goal waiting to happen and it will happen again.

I think IE intended we should go long more than usual as Barnsley are know for their press / we certainly did much of the time. I can’t help feeling the players didn’t necessarily follow instructions. Good as Thomason is with some aspects of his game, receiving a ball in tight areas with no out ball is probably not one of them.

We are second in the table. In one of the automatic spots, why would you be wanting a change of manager. Tactics have us a currently the second best team in the league

I don't want a change in manager, just wish he was a bit more pragmatic and changed our tactics now and again when it's clearly not working.

It doesn't matter what the fans think, it's what the owners do and they have the utmost faith in him, so much so they've given him a stake in the club with the B shares allocated to him and also (it must be said very quietly) the 'issues' he's had (and still having?) in his personal life.

Evatt's been backed in the transfer market also - and although I'm no expert like some who clearly know everything about football from playing 'Football Manager' or whatever on their phone or iPad - we do seem to be considered by many to have one of the three best squads in the division along with Portsmouth and Derby - meaning again whatever we may think about his management, he hasn't underachieved in terms of the owners expectations of him.

He also plays a pleasing and attractive style of football (when it works).

We, the fans, also need to have realistic expectations too.

Of course we can see faults and things that can be improved.

Things that I, and no doubt you, would not be doing (suicide football at the back that constantly leads to the opposition scoring - for instance) BUT we also have third rate players (and I'm not being disparaging - we are after all in the third tier of the football in this country) playing against third rate opposition - and most fans expect us to be playing - with error avoidance - like City and Liverpool do.

Such expectations are simply unrealistic - we have the players we have (and face the players we do) because if they were any better they would sooner rather than later be playing for another club in a higher division.

We had Bradley playing for us last season and I've read on here some saying in their eyes he wasn't that good - yet he's currently playing outstandingly for Klopp and Liverpool at the top of the Premier League!

People have their right to their own opinions but it doesn't mean they know what the fuck they are talking about does it?

Seems to me that the object of FV is to get us in the Championship for next season.

Clearly we DO have weaknesses in our squad/style of play that other teams exploit at third tier level - which will be exploited even more at second tier level if we go up and don't do something about them - which to fix would require better platers - which equals, higher wages!

Would that cause a problem for FV?

Who knows but for now at least it seems that we have a lot of rich people willing to back us - so maybe it wouldn't?

I simply don't thing Evatt is going anywhere, anytime soon - no matter what people think - and probably won't be until he loses the fans (marching round the stadium like zombies to protest against Anderson - style) or if some possible 'indiscretion' away from the club makes his position untenable (if such circumstanced ever arose) - in my opinion.

We are all, in reality, just along for the ride - it is what it is.

Remember this is football we are talking about - it is just a GAME.

Nothing more.

Keeping possession is a good thing in general but not the end all of football.  When you consistently pass the ball to a man with his back to goal and one or two defenders on him you are asking for trouble. So, all we are asking is don't be stupid and clear the ball up field when you are being pressured. Man City get away with it, but we are not quite at that level. When they press chip the ball over them for some quick forward runs......football is simple its managers who make it complicated.
Hoping we don't have a banana skin game this weekend after the Barnsley emotional affair.
COYWM

Could I quote a couple of lines from Sluffy's post.
'It is just a GAME. Nothing more'.
You're so wrong.
It affects me more than I'd like to admit. How I interact with my family, how I sleep, the mood I was in at work, whether or not I could attend a wedding, buying a framed autographed shirt instead of the kitchen table and chairs I'd been sent out to buy, droning on about the Wanderers and many other unrelated topics on here, and wishing desperately that my dad, instead of taking me to Burnden, had told mum to teach me how to knit.
My life would have been so much easier.
Yet here I am. A 70 year old man watching away games online, and, during more than one game this season, wrestling the mattress off the bed and attempting to fight it.
I'm not proud. It's not pleasant. It's undignified to the point of absurdity.
Relatives will often come up to my room, brew in hand, just to watch ME watching the match.
Even now I get the same buzz heading off to the match. Even now I still get goosebumps seeing the floodlights in the distance.
I've shed real tears over this wonderful club.
I'm sorry Sluffy, but it's not 'just a game'.

Well said Bonce!

boltonbonce wrote:Could I quote a couple of lines from Sluffy's post.
'It is just a GAME. Nothing more'.
You're so wrong.
It affects me more than I'd like to admit. How I interact with my family, how I sleep, the mood I was in at work, whether or not I could attend a wedding, buying a framed autographed shirt instead of the kitchen table and chairs I'd been sent out to buy, droning on about the Wanderers and many other unrelated topics on here, and wishing desperately that my dad, instead of taking me to Burnden, had told mum to teach me how to knit.
My life would have been so much easier.
Yet here I am. A 70 year old man watching away games online, and, during more than one game this season, wrestling the mattress off the bed and attempting to fight it.
I'm not proud. It's not pleasant. It's undignified to the point of absurdity.
Relatives will often come up to my room, brew in hand, just to watch ME watching the match.
Even now I get the same buzz heading off to the match. Even now I still get goosebumps seeing the floodlights in the distance.
I've shed real tears over this wonderful club.
I'm sorry Sluffy, but it's not 'just a game'.

Sorry Bonce you are wrong.

It IS a game.

Just because you (and many, many others take it very much more personally - even across the world, let alone little old Bolton!) it is still only a game.

Every year, (EVERY YEAR!) the previous seasons results are 'wiped' and everyone starts again on zero points (ok some start on minus points) everybody in theory are in with a chance of winning the new season's FA Cup - nearly all teams start the new season in which they ended the previous one - we more or less always have the same six or seven English teams in the Champion League, and so on.

Football is an ENTERTAINMENT business - it doesn't actually produce anything other than make a bunch of young men whose only ability (usually, some do have others) is to kick a ball better than most, eye wateringly rich compared to the rest of us.

There's a 'value' placed on this entertainment (this GAME), much higher than any other type of entertainment (although golf with the Saudi LIV money is catching up quickly), that in the cold light of day simply isn't merited.

But that is how the world is.

It IS a game.

Just because you (and millions of others) don't see it that way, doesn't alter what it actually is.

I'm not here to pop anyone's bubble, I'm sufficiently wrapped up enough in it  myself to feel happy when we win and down when we lose but I'm still clear headed enough to see it for what it is.

And clearly that's why I'm often seen to be in the minority about lots of things - in the real world as well as on here - because I'm analytical and not emotional in my make-up.

I enjoy the 'theatre' - both the real theatre - I've been twice recently after stepping away from it over the Covid years - and the 'theatre' of football and cycling and other entertainments (even politics!) but I base my judgements on what my head tells me and not what my heart is saying.

(And before anyone starts - no, I'm not hearing voices in my head...!).

Football may well be more than a matter of life and death to you and billions of others but it still is only a game and it isn't a matter of life or death in reality - or we'd have thousands of people throwing themselves off cliffs like lemmings (supposedly do - it isn't true) - at the end of every season and this simply doesn't happen does it?

People don't top themselves because of football results because deep down even the most committed of fans, KNOW it is only a GAME.

Despite what you say, deep down you know it is too, it is your entertainment, your inspiration, your emotional rollercoaster and no doubt means very much more to you but it is - after all - simply just some blokes kicking a ball about.

Perhaps I should add than I'm not out to offend anyone or comment on how others see the world - I'm not here to judge anyone.

I'm not that type.

I apologise if anyone takes what I am saying in any other way than how I meant it to be - namely a statement of fact.

Black and white if you like and not shades of grey.

I'm with Boncey on this, it is more than a game, it's about belonging to something, your club and your town and fellow supporters. My intensity may have slipped a bit in recent years but overall i couldn't imagine a world without BWFC and all that goes with it - the highs and (mainly) lows but i wouldn't have it any other way.

When we almost went bust i had no clue what i would do without BWFC, thank God we didn't go the way of Bury.

I hear what you say. My mother drilled it into me for years. 'It's only a game', she'd say, and carry on knitting, as I threw my shoes at the cat. The last game at Burnden didn't matter. It's only a ground.
No. We'll just have to agree to differ on this one. But I know very well where you're coming from, but I'm a lost cause. I used to wag school to go and watch the players train. My mum would love you Sluffy. You've got sense. I'm like the town drunk. Mocked by everyone, but happy in his booze fuelled delirium.

Norpig wrote:I'm with Boncey on this, it is more than a game, it's about belonging to something, your club and your town and fellow supporters. My intensity may have slipped a bit in recent years but overall i couldn't imagine a world without BWFC and all that goes with it - the highs and (mainly) lows but i wouldn't have it any other way.

When we almost went bust i had no clue what i would do without BWFC, thank God we didn't go the way of Bury.

Too right.
Living in Warrington now I don't often see a Wanderers shirt on show, but if I'm out wearing mine, and I see another bloke wearing one heading my way, it's a sight to see.
If you've ever seen The Railway Children, Jenny Agutter's cry of 'Daddy, my daddy', just about sums up the reaction. Pitiful isn't it.
I remember having a right old ding dong with a new bloke at work over safety issues. We almost came to blows. The boss told us to leave office and take an early lunch. As I grabbed my coat, the other guy noticed my Wanderers lapel badge.
'You a White Man'?
From that day he gave me a lift to work every day for over twenty years. He lives in Canada now. Still a White.
I've had my issues with 63, but at the end of the day, he's one of us. He can't help being wrong all the time.