Bolton Wanderers (A) F A Cup 3rd round, Jan 5th, 3pm

100% Dobson was awful constantly overun in the middle at least kins battled and chased back.

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and this is what happens when a ■■■■■ league one defence comes up against a team with proven championship players in it wherever they are in there division.

Someone just asked how the game was. Sent a screenshot of this. :+1:t3:

Enjoyed seeing our goals again. If I could only blot out the others…

Dear oh dear. Was actually really enjoyable up until about ten past four. A large, noisy away following. More than matching a side from the league above, a goal up and then…oh my ■■■■■■■ word.

Amateur for 30 minutes. Dobson probably the worst. Russell “major coup” Martin giving us another lesson in standing still. Luke Leahy having lots of very binary decisions and picking the wrong one every time. Substitutions that made us palpably worse.

Honestly, the most non-league half an hour or so from managers and players alike I think I’ve ever seen. Fred Karno would have struggled to amass enough clowns to match the circus that we witnessed for that half an hour. Against a side so low on confidence you could see they didn’t want to be there.

We’re amateurs. Willing amateurs, I’ll grant you. But the manager looks and sounds more non league every week and the players make mistakes and decisions every week that render the juxtaposition of the words professional and footballer nothing more than a fabrication of their own limited imaginations. We can’t manage our way through a game of football. Effort a plenty. Intelligence lacking.

Plus points - Jarvis, Cook, Kinsella, support, first half.

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Absolutely diabolical second half performance. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Walsall team so susceptible to conceding multiple goals so quickly and look so clueless in terms of game management. What happened to Keates’ stingy defences at Wrexham? Ship the ■■■■■■■ lot out. They might be nice blokes and have ‘desire’ and ‘pashun’ and all the other Whitney-isms for which they were signed in the first place but they’re not good enough.

From the first 5 minutes of the second half you could see it coming. We just sat deeper and deeper and every time Bolton went forward it looked like they would score and they pretty much did. As a team we’re an absolute shambles defensively.

Plus points, echoing those above:

  • Jarvis - put a peach of a cross in for our first and if kept fit will be an asset. Defensively better than Leahy.
  • Cook - Can’t fault this bloke. He must be so frustrated and looks it at times. Holds the ball up, wins headers, brings others in to play, unlucky not to score a second.
  • Kinsella - thought he played well
  • Support - Good to see 1,500 travelling up there, felt like more. Deserved better than that ■■■■-show 2nd half

Also, what the ■■■■ was the matter with their stewards? Before kick off, I was standing in the concourse bit and someone went and stuck a Walsall sticker over a Wolves one on the wall. A steward marched over and immediately scraped it off. Our fan just laughed and said “hey, why didn’t you remove the Wolves one too mate?” as a joke and a bit of banter, and the steward immediately got in his grill, almost red-faced with temper and said “Oh you think it’s funny, how about when I eject you from the ground for property vandalism?”.

Then there was the first half incident - anyone know what happened with the stewards again when one of ours got ejected?

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Wow where do you start with that ???

I’ll keep it simple Guthrie , Martin , Leahy and Devlin are without doing the worst defensive unit I have seen in the last 20 years!!

On a positive Cookie is bloody brilliant absolute menace and gives everything for the shirt.

All in all a pretty crap day out, but hey that seems to be the norm these days following this club!

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Can anyone explain what’s happened to Dobson???

He was shaping up to be a solid dependable player and over the last couple of months has literally gone to bits…

Is it the arrival of Martin (who in my opinion is a liability…)

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The defensive unit is Roberts, Devlin,leahy, Guthrie, Martin, Ismail, Jarvis, Dobson,kinsella, cook and ferrier. That’s where the problems lie. You don’t rely on just your front 2 to attack and you don’t defend with just 4 players.

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Oh come off it , the back 4 is woeful and should be capable of defending balls into the box… it’s the basics they lack!

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Looking forward to Ancient Moaner posting his thoughts after being on the free sauce all afternoon :wink:

I’m saying that the back 4 is no more culpable than the rest of the team and the management. Look at some recent goals, the equaliser against Luton for example - it started from ferrier losing the ball in their box and swept straight past our midfield and was then poorly defended. A team effort!

Ditto the first at Charlton etc. etc.

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Totally disgusted
I have been saying on match threads for months, the same things.

Team to slow to close down, too deep, too slow, don’t win second ball.
We actually looked fitter and sharper under whitless !

The team, especially the management, and certainly the ‘board’ need to take a long hard look at themselves

That 2nd half was again totally unexcepable. I would sack the back 5 tomorrow or DK will end up looking for a new job.

I actually thought our forward line looked dangerous today and were let down by ■■■■ defending . You have to be able to defend balls into the box or you have no chance!

el Nombre is very quiet tonight. It must be all that humble pie he’s eating.

I think minimum we need is now a centre half, full back, and a goalkeeper to sort this out.

I think Liam could be turned round. As for the others id take a whole new back four now.

We were fitter and sharper under Whitney. That was his specialism. And he was in excellent at it. Just a shame that the board appointed him manager and we lost the best physio/performance coach we could hope for. We miss him in that role.

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I regret to say the Manager must take his share of the blame. Bolton introduced two subs at H/T and our response? There wasn’t one. We played well first half and as others have said Cook was excellent against two towering centre backs, I would also praise Ferrier who led their defence a merry dance but couldn’t produce the end product. However with Jarvis showing some class going forward we will cause teams trouble and that IS a positive.
However the defending for their goals was appalling. Martin was the chief culprit in my eyes(not a good advert for a vegan diet by the way). Before one their goals he spent time arguing with the referee about a foul not given on Cook and before he got to the other end we were completely disorganised. As others have said you cannot simply blame the back 4 for our troubles. We were overrun in midfield during the second half where Dobson looked completely knackered. We had Osbourne and Edward available !!!
We need urgently a dominating CH and a strong defensive midfielder. If we don’t sign anyone then a switch to 5 across the middle may have to used away from home at least.

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I posted a massive analysis further up. And replied to you directly.

You must have missed it.