Bolton Wanderers: The Power of Negative Thinking

I visited my brother in London over the weekend, giving me the chance to see the Watford match live. Unfortunately. As such, I have a couple of points I feel I must raise. Firstly, Chris Eagles and Marvin Sordell were awful. They never ran off the ball to stretch the defence, or to move into space to receive the ball. Also, especially with Eagles, whenever the ball was passed to them, they weren't ready to move forward, they were constantly on their heels and lost the ball more times than I can count because of this. When Eagles was rightly substituted, albeit too late to make any difference, many fans started hurling abuse at him. This prompted Chris Eagles' sister and her friend, sat in the Bolton end, to start a fight with some of the more vociferous fans. Ridiculous. Secondly, from what I could see, Freedman got his tactics massively wrong. The way we defended, I imagine he told the defence to sit deep and narrow. Presumably, he did this because Watford don't play with any wingers and to stop them from catching us on the counter. It didn't work. The space on the wings allowed them to run at us with careless abandon, until the dismal Ricketts decided he would close them down. Then he would show them inside and let them run at our centre backs. Because they were so deep, they were practically in the box by now. All Vydra and Abdi had to do from then was use their considerable pace to turn the outrageously slow Knight and Ream and they were free. Because Watford were poor, they only scored twice. Despite our considerable possession, they could easily had more. And then Freedman has the disgusting temerity to say they played marvelously, and anybody who disagrees is an idiot. Listen, we had enough of this shtick from Coyle. Someone at the club needs to tell him to shut up and give us some results. Three points from relegation in the Championship is frighteningly bad. Sort it out. Penultimately, Lonergan needs to start. Confidence at the back starts with the goalkeeper, and for me, Bogdan radiates nervousness and I think that this affects the defence's performance as well. Also, Lonergan is a better shot stopper and is slightly better at taking crosses. Ream played okay apart from falling on his arse for no reason for their first goal, although stupid mistakes like this need to be eradicated completely. Spearing and Vela played okay, but they are too defensive and inexperienced respectively to give us any impetus from the centre of the park. Hopefully this Medo Kamara and the returning Holden will give us this. Lastly, Pratley was epic, running the channels and keeping the ball all game, Craig Davies did well for the time he had on, stretching the defence and running into some dangerous areas in their box and De Ridder looked like Petrov Mark II, so my hopes aren't particularly high but may give us more directness from the wings. He's a very tricky player; he reminds me of Weiss in that he may do too many tricks, but is capable of unlocking defences sometimes.

Further to thingymajigs comments I think Pratley is fast becoming our best player and should not be dropped to allow others to play. He is getting better week on week. If others in the team put in his effort we would I feel be far better off.

I don't see any other player who works so hard for us. He made the goal against Everton with his running off the ball and great pass to Sordell. He did the same time and time again in that match and caused them problems. He is a much better player than he gets credit for. But then the same could be said for Knight I don't think I have ever seen a defender win and clear so many balls as he has this year but people choose to concentrate on the errors he makes. It is easier to find fault than celebrate the positive.

I agree that the lad puts lots of effort in, but he is never Premiership quality, and most of the others are the same. I have been watching Bolton since 1977 and the defence is the weakest i have ever seen, they lack anticipation and are slow to react, they often watch the ball instead of picking up the other teams players, it really is Sunday League stuff at times. Add to this a midfield that is not putting enough effort in and hey presto there is only one direction we are heading.