The lack of organisation when we're defending is laughable. Its becoming fecking obvious that we don't work on shape and the minute detail you need to succeed at this level. All that sport science stuff has gone down the toilet, we used to be very fit as a side but now we looked ragged past the 80 min mark. TBH I don't think it matters what formation you have when you're 2 up. But I would prefer an extra man in midfield, they were just picking holes in there. If we had two fully fit sitters then it might be another story. Felt sorry for Reo Coker who was quite clearly not fit.

I don't actually mind a 4-4-2 when we're defending its just we've seen so many better organised ones. I don't think its hard to set up two banks of four and work on that in training. Tin pot international teams do it regularly and limit better sides to few chances. When you see Kevin Davies playing on the outside of our left back you know something ain't right. This disorganisation comes from the manager, no question about it.

And Klasnic is not the player you bring on in that situation. Picking up scraps in the box is his thing when we're chasing but outside it he is bloody dreadful. Would have given Vela a run instead of Davo and left Ngog upfront. At least he could move somewhat which Davo couldn't unfortunately. The lad looks exhausted. Oh and I heard a rumour that Sordell fell out with Coyle and will be sold in the Summer. Any ITK confirm this? Its either that or he's really shite not to get ahead of Ngog/Davies/Klasnic.

If anyone can fathom the Lee substitution for Petrov please let me know. Staggering decision.

2 nil up and the madman puts 2 forward players on!!! WTF??

3 or 4 times WB sliced us apart at the back in the first half and we were lucky to go in at one nil up. Having got a second, anyone in their right mind would have seen that Mark Davies was contributing nothing in midfield, NRC was tiring and we were going to struggle.

Tactically, that was so inept it was embarrassing.

i was calling for some subsititutes personally i thought miyayachi and sordell would have come on for ngog and petrov leaving target man kev to be a target man to ease pressure on our defense and miyiyachi and sordell to burn pace while the rest of the team stayed back more or less, then coyle brings on klas and cyl..... klas did nothing but give the ball away and cyl won a header and got crunched in a tackle ?? this was our defensive strategy ? seriously coyle needs help by a defensive assistant manager he is deliusional.

So making defensive substitutions to protect a lead is a proven failed strategy in football? That's possibly the most innovative Owen Coyle apologia yet, fair play to you.

How stupid do you have to be to not shore up midfield when you're under pressure and have a 2-0 lead to defend for 20 minutes. As stupid as Owen Coyle, that's who.

I was always willing to accept that even though he was tactically naive, he might be a great man manager. At least he might have the leadership and personal skills to manage a top flight team. But from what I'm hearing about the number of bust-ups he's had with players he's not even got that to his name.

I'll love it if we stay up and I'll relish a promotion or play-off chasing season in the Championship. But to think this joker has the safest job in football is just wrong.

I swear, had we brought on a midfielder or defender instead of Klasnic and Lee, people would have complained that we were sitting back and inviting the pressure.

I think we'd have conceded regardless. That second goal came too early in the second half. We'd have seen it out had it been later in the game. As it was, our defense just isn't good enough to withstand any amount of sustained pressure from a decent attacking side.

Sordell wasn't even on the bench.

It came with 18 minutes to go. 18 minutes....

FFS.

Didn't realise it was that late. Felt an awful lot earlier. Still too early, should have been in the 92nd minute.

do you recall who was??

Jussi, Alonso, Knight, CYL, Vela, Klasnic and Miyaichi

Bolton: Bogdan, Boyata, Ream, Wheater (Knight 46), Ricketts, Eagles, Mark Davies, Reo-Coker, Petrov (Chung-Yong 82), Kevin Davies, Ngog (Klasnic 67) (Subs not used: Jaaskelainen, Alonso, Ryo, Vela)

I don't get this weird counterfactual justification for Coyle every week when he's been making the same mistakes all season. There's no excuse for what he does if it consistently fails to work.

If by some miracle we beat Stoke at home, it will be in spite of Coyle.

i agree it will be the players that keep us up not coyle though he plays a large part being that if were winning he may decide to chop and change and leave us with no pace uptop and without a midfeild again but hey who knows his magic 8 ball may work once in a while and stoke may be ready for their hols by the time we come to visit, Though i highley doubt we will even scrap a draw


should have brought on miyaiyachi instead of cyl tbh even if it meant taking off ngog which i thought personally was an stupid decision in itself

Disagreed with you a lot thru the megson saga but you are spot on here and you have saved me banging on an on about our pathetic players ! its been like watching under 9's

Agreed.

When we go down I don't think it will be a rapid return not with this tw*t in charge we will still have an open door policy as far as midfield and the defence are concerned . Just who the feck is our defensive coach because whoever he is that tosser most certainly is stealing a living

You can't argue with the facts, the amount of times Megson brought off a striker to bring on Gavin McCann was countless, and it costed us loads of points. We were notorious for throwing 2-0 leads away that it got to the point where we didn't want to be 2-0 up!

What we should have done is carried on the way we were. We always seem to piss it up the wall as soon as a goal goes in. Why can't we keep the same enthusiasm and momentum as we were? It seems to be a mentality across the last four managers we've had (including Sammy Lee) in that we just go to bits and get battered until the other team scores a goal. It's never fecking easy. It happened under Allardyce as well. No subs, no sitting back, just carry the feck on with what they were doing, please.

I really didn't see the point of bringing Lee on for this one, we should have made no subs in that game other than the Wheater one due to injury.

One thing I'll look forward to if/when we do go down is getting rid of that fecking lazy shit Klasnic who has potentially the worst ball control I have ever seen.

Where am I justifying Coyle? There's no excusing Coyle here, I'm just commenting on fans picking up on something when had it been the reverse, they would have said something along the lines of "attack is the best form of defense" or "we're bound to concede if we sit back." The fickleness of it all annoys me.

For most of the last twenty minutes we hardly touched the ball except to bang it back to them or into touch. Sound familiar? We were lucky to keep them to two and could easily have lost, because we didn't play football of any description. It doesn't need Leslie Welch to remember how many other times this season we've played chicken run to a band of foxes. K.D was knackered because his game isn't to run around chasing shadows in his own half. He isn't trined to defend or take up defensive positions. He should have come off, N'gog left forward and Vela brought on.

Why have a ten man defence that consistently gets scored against? Our full backs regularly get suckered in the direction of play, like water down a plughole, and leaving the back post wide open. Teams can't play without the ball and we seem to have an aversion to keeping it. Bogdan can't take blame for the goals, but the defence certainly can.

Hard to know where to start with the Bolton team at the minute.

We have a keeper with a habit of pushing the ball out into the danger area ( that he has got away with so far)

Defence cant pass, have no pace, have a habit of falling over at inappropriate moments and marking seems to be an alien concept

Midfield cant pass, cant track a runner and cant seem to win the ball back

We have a striker who wont shoot, a striker who cant shoot, a striker who wont run and a striker who will run up the touchline one and then seems to need to sit down for the next hour

While we have been unlucky with injuries and Coyle is tactically inept the biggest problem is that the players Coyle signed are simply not good enough

I hope we fluke staying up but by god do we deserve to go down