Dang you gone and changed it now...that makes me so mad

yeah we have - we've singed Blakeman!!!

Dat fat lady singed !

A bit harsh

I haven't posted in ages but I do log on to keep up with news, especially around transfer window time. Mostly I try and stick to those threads because it makes my blood boil when people have a go at posters like BWFCi or others who dare suggest the people currently at the helm aren't up to it. It seems like Bolton fans are just by and large happy to have mediocrity without rocking the boat, no one would make a fuss if we dropped to League 1 I sometimes think, and I regret the day I fell in love with Bolton Wanderers at times.

To watch that idiot Coyle making his 'tactical moves' is a joke, his subs are awful, his formation was born to lose, his neglect of Muamba was a joke, his signing and refusal to play Sordell was both baffling and exasperating. Selling Al Habsi to Wigan and watching him almost single handedly keep them up sometimes depressed me, Im happy for him but it is a joke that this club couldn't see he was absolutely miles ahead of Jussi and Bogdan. We've dropped points on blooding Bogdan too early. Points we couldn't afford to drop. Al Habsi would have made a huge difference. We practically gave him away. Was it a racial thing? Who knows. Theres no way he was third choice between Jussi Bogdan and him. Theres no way he would have been given away for peanuts under Big Sam.

Yet Coyle remains in a job. Uncle Phil says he can stay in the job for as long as he wants. It seems Uncle Phil hires who he's pally with and sticks with them regardless of whether they're actually any good. His Sam bashing seems even more stupid now, what I wouldn't give for Big Sam back at the helm, and the brain dead comments about 'people in football' knowing what he was on about seem like a joke, because most fans could see that Coyle was taking us down through his stupidity when Uncle Phil clearly couldn't.
Over the last 11 years or so I have converted most of my family and friends to Bolton Wanderers supporters. They are all overseas with the exception of my wife who's here in the UK with me. None of them will be able to watch the Wanderers for the next season. They will probably move on. I wouldn't mind if we were awful. I wouldn't mind if we didn't have a shot. But we did. Its all down to the people who run this club and the fans who shell out their money but don't seem to have a voice.

Im devastated we went down, yes I sometimes regret that I chose to support Bolton without any real links to the town or club, but it would be lame to support someone else now. So I will stick with Bolton. Since I live near Cardiff at least Ill get to see the Bristol and Cardiff games and hopefully the Birmingham one as well. I hope we will be able to go straight back up.
But Ill never forgive Owen Coyle. Or Phil Gartside. I can't even play as Bolton on PES now. I never thought that would happen. I hope for the day Gartside and Coyle are gone from my club.

give your head a shake, son.

he was saleable. end.

Al Habsi was a decent keeper, who at times was heroic and other times error strewn. He'd served his time and it was either let him go or make him number one. It is debatable whether he was any better than Jussi at the time. Bogdan is probably as capable as Al Habsi and therefore deserves his chance. A club like ours can't keep hold of 3 keepers like that. One had to go. So either let our longest servant go who still has something to offer us, yet receive no fee. Let the youngster go and get a minimal fee. Or let Al Habsi go for a very good transfer fee?

In my view the right choice was made. We have both experience and youth and £4m. Keeping Al Habsi wouldn't have improved where we are and Coyle wouldn't have had the money to spend on Sordell

Point the finger at Coyle for inept tactics. Poor use of substitutes. lack of fitness and sheer bloody mindedness. But selling Al Habsi was no great crime. To many folk on here sounding off like they belong on a West Ham or Newcastle forum

Easy enough to say. But under Coyle, the team has tried to go for a lot of young English players. What many other people/fans/teams would describe as overpriced and under talented players. The multinational core of Sam Allardyce teams, and indeed teams like Arsenal and Newcastle, is not there. Teams like Bolton can't afford good young English players.



In the end if you think letting Al Habsi go was the right decision thats your view, and you're entitled to it. Ill shake my head and wonder how people still can't see how much better than both our other keepers he was, and Im sure Wigan fans won't mind too much. I can guarantee you they wouldn't trade him for Jussi or Bogdan.

As for 'too many people sounding off like they're on a West Ham or Newcastle' forum, don't worry, that won't be the case for long. Bolton is not a big club crowd wise. Its not a popular town. People have absolutely zero reason in general to support Bolton. Chastising people who hope for the club to have a little success leads to managers like Owen Coyle staying far longer than they should and doing damage to the club, and most normal fans without a tie to the area will end up supporting clubs that actually have aims and aspirations. There will be zero overseas fans, the fans that all the big clubs are absolutely dying for. Never fails to amaze me how Bolton fans get mad when relatively new fans hope for success, but then seems surprised when the gates for games aren't as high as some of the other teams. You show zero aspirations, you get zero fans.

Not sure you're serious here? Holden and Chungy would beg to differ

Im completely serious. Lets see by August if Chungy is still at the club, Id be gobsmacked if he stays beyond Jan at the latest, regardless of what the Championship table says. When was the last time Holden played?

Serious, you guys want your heads looking at if you're complaining about Newcastles fan base, or West Hams. Im sure the club would rather have scores of delusional fans as long as they pack the stadium, rather than a few very well behaved Bolton fans and half the stadium empty.
Perhaps if the fans had been more vociferous in their opposition to Owen Coyle the club wouldn't be in this position today.

I'm sad it didn't work out with Al-Habsi. I liked him a lot. I can see the logic of selling him though. He was caught between the 36 year old Jussi and the 23 year old Bogdan. If we stuck with Al-Habsi we might have lost a potential 15 year servant in Bogdan. £4 million for a guy who has only made a handful of appearances is a good deal.

So I don't blame Coyle for selling him this summer. I do question the logic of giving Jussi a new deal back in 2008. Ali was ready to make the step up at that point.

my head scratching was (and is) purely around your suggestion that getting rid of Al Habsi had a racial motive.

I think you have the Bolton fan myopia. Anyone not currently playing for us is automatically better than anyone we have and are better than they really are. Read Andranik as where this myopia started I think. You see, we all remember Al Habsi and his heroics for us. What we don't see because we don't see him play anymore is that he drops some absolutely massive bollocks and not once a season as well. There really isn't much to choose between the 3 keepers. Jussi as back-up and an improving Bogdan is not bad for a club like us. We just had it real good for a few years, but we can't afford that as a norm. To sum up. Al Habsi - decent keeper, nowhere near as good as you're making him out to be.

I'm not sure I'm chastising anyone. In general I am criticising some of the knee jerk bandwaggon posts that are on here. We have a proud tradition on this forum of taking the piss out of clubs and fans that are up their own arses and believe their own hype. West Ham are a particular favourite. I see increasing numbers of posts that would ordinarily appear in our piss taking threads had fans of those teams posted them anywhere.

As for Coyle. He has shown himself for what he is. I wont argue that he is a particularly good manager; the evidence is clear. But slating him for ridiculous things doesn't make sense. Displaying absolute outrage at him for selling Al Habsi for a good price makes no sense. It plainly made sense for good reason, even if you wouldn't have chosen to do so personally. Doing something like selling Cahill for 50p in January would rightly so deserve outrage and ridicule. Just because it isn't what you would do, doesn't make it outrageous. As for the racial thing. Get a life. There is nothing to suggest Coyle is racist and I find it quite offensive that someone would suggest it when there is no evidence to even hint at it.

Criticise Coyle by all means, but at least keep it within the realms of deserved criticism.

No, Bish was spot on.

Coyle's signings since January 2010 include;

Stuart Holden (USA)
Martin Petrov (BUL)
Marcos Alonso (ESP)
Ivan Klasnic (CRO)
David NGog (FRA)
Tim Ream (USA)

That's 6 permanent international signings (in comparison to 8 English signings during same period)

All of which doesn't include loan deals during the same time, which include players such as; Weiss, Rodrigo, Kakuta, Boyata, Tuncay, Miyaichi.

Of course premier league rules require that a club include at least 8 home grown players so there is only so much room to play with in the first place. In my opinion (and despite his many, many flaws) saying Owen Coyle has picked a team on merits of race rather than playing ability is farcical and honestly quite disgusting.

Edit: And sorry who have we brought in that is both English, and over-priced/payed. Only one I can think of that we've spent a significant chunk on is Sordell and he's bloody 21!

Coyle selling Al Habsi because of his race? I've read some real bell-clanging bollocks on here, but that tops the lot.

Plus Chungy will be going nowhere, he played a sum total of 1.5 games this season. Teams will want to see him in action before taking a gamble and with other professionals he's still under contract which means unless we agree to sell he'll still be here after August

I can't believe the reaction that got. Wow, I was trying to suggest that Coyle wants to go for an English, or at least European core to the squad. The African/Middle Eastern/South American players are not targeted at all. That may be a strategy, and theres nowt wrong with that, but it just seems European, and particularly English, players, are relatively overpriced, and therefore clubs with less spending money need to be targeting foreign players from further afar. What exactly is disgusting about proposing a hypothesis like that? Dalglish clearly is pursuing the same strategy, hence he paid 20 million for Jordan Henderson when he wouldn't be worth 5 if he wasn't English.
You lot really need to get out more if you find that disgusting/insulting/whatever.

I didn't consider the hypothesis that there actually other people apart from Coyle that thought Al Habsi wasn't by far a better keeper than Jussi and Bogdan and this season was no time to be pissing about blooding a youngster. Apparently other people feel the same, and they all live in Bolton. Again, try asking a Wigan fan if they'd swap Al Habsi for Jussi or Bogdan. That'd be the Wigan who had safety assured courtesy of an Alcaraz goal, the South American Alcaraz. We have how many South Americans? Coyle is targeting more expensive leagues, and I don't think Bolton can afford to do that.

Hence why I said he'll be gone by Jan. He'll have 6 months to prove his fitness and then he'll be off regardless of where we are in the Championship.

British clubs will always have a larger European contingency due to government immigration rules. It is quite difficult to bring South American players to this country unless they are well established (out of our price range usually), or have dual nationality. Wigan have a more established scouting network in that part of the world than we do that goes back quite a few years. You could argue we have a better North American scouting network than Wigan. Does that make Martinez crap for not signing Holden or Ream?

For budgetary and possibly idealistic reasons he is trying to buy young players that are not proven yet. This means buying European for work permit reasons.

We didn't piss about blooding Bogdan. Jussi, who was our number one at the time was unable to play. Bogdan did what number 2s do, step up. He had a horror show that day but showed real character to overcome it. He has a way to go, but he has deservedly kept the jersey in my view. Time will tell, but I think Al Habsi has already displayed his best. Bogdan I don't think has.

Comparing to Dalglish is a bit non-sensical. He was sacked earlier btw.

As for your comment in thew original post. You suggested that Coyle sold Al Habsi and kept the 2 European keepers for racial reasons. What is there not to take issue about a statement like that?

Yo are right that British players are over-priced. This is nothing new. I think Coyle needs to find a balance between younger players and some experience, If he retains Davies and Ricketts then I think that gives us that. I'm looking forward to the coming season more than I have done in many years. I'm looking forward to seeing what some of our younger players can do rather than seeing some of the oldies ...