Bolton v Blackpool Official Matchday Thread 11.11.23

[Graves]

Bolton had won 5 in a row before today and were bang in form. I thought for the most part we handled them well but it affected our forward play. Thats the first time we’ve not scored since Wycombe away - 12 games ago. We will lose games and that today was one they we could and have lost

On the up however, with the exception of Portsmouth away our next batch of games aren’t too bad (bottom half teams) and there is no reason why we can’t be it a run together.

With players coming back I’m cautiously optimistic and come Xmas the league table may look much more kinder than it does now

You’ve mostly covered my thoughts here.

I thought it was a tense game where neither team wanted to lose. I said it will privately go 1-0 Bolton just before kick off. Wanderers deserve to be where they are because they can keep teams out, manage possession when they need to and score decent goals from nothing. That’s what they did today. In other home games they’ve won quite convincingly.

They were definitely worried about us but we undercooked some of our short passes and final balls which came from their unforced errors.

We aren’t experienced enough since our reboot to get the consistency we’d like to see. But I’m more hopeful than not that we’ll continue to build towards something better than this. Football rebuilds take time and the top three teams in the division are a good indication of that.

 

[Breck]

Visiting Bolton fan:
Very impressive away following today from Blackpool, you've brought some great followings to ours since 2010 when we started playing each other again after a very long pause.
Obviously I'm happy with the result but a very close game and although I thought if any team deserved the win it was probably just about us, in reality the draw was the fairest result.
Derbies generally flatten out the natural difference in football between home form and away form. It's therefore really odd that we remain about 38 years unbeaten against you at home. I hope we end our 46 year wait for a win at Bloomfield later this season. It's a bizarre sequence of results between our two clubs, there's been nowt for away sides since the mid-1970s!

 

[tangerine.com]

Visiting Bolton fan:
Very impressive away following today from Blackpool, you've brought some great followings to ours since 2010 when we started playing each other again after a very long pause.
Obviously I'm happy with the result but a very close game and although I thought if any team deserved the win it was probably just about us, in reality the draw was the fairest result.
Derbies generally flatten out the natural difference in football between home form and away form. It's therefore really odd that we remain about 38 years unbeaten against you at home. I hope we end our 46 year wait for a win at Bloomfield later this season. It's a bizarre sequence of results between our two clubs, there's been nowt for away sides since the mid-1970s!

You are right. Any team could have won it but we blew it. And hopefully that game is not going to define the rest of our season.

 

[SouthernSeasider]

Superb support. Enjoyed it. Whole air had a derby game feel about it.

On the pitch thought we were ok. Nothing fantastic didn’t look like scoring but neither did they until the screamer.

Annoying result.

Wtf happened at the station just about made it 10x worse

 

[TangerineAde]

Knowing Evo - he most likely told his lads to go easy on us - until half way through the second half. He’s thoughtful like that.

 

[TotallyTangerine]

It was just ‘okay’ for a derby match. Fantastic support but the atmosphere wasn’t up there somehow compared to others we’ve been to.

And… why the hell can’t we shoot sometimes instead of trying to walk it into the net…

 

[BFC4EVA]

Superb support. Enjoyed it. Whole air had a derby game feel about it.

On the pitch thought we were ok. Nothing fantastic didn’t look like scoring but neither did they until the screamer.

Annoying result.

Wtf happened at the station just about made it 10x worse

What did happen at the station.? We got the coach

 

[no9]

Knowing Evo - he most likely told his lads to go easy on us - until half way through the second half. He’s thoughtful like that.

Ha, yep, the main lads for Bolton just stepped up a gear.
That’s what happens, better players usually win.

 

[20togo]

Didn’t think we played too badly but accept we were very toothless upfront.

Why no Lavery today?He is in goal scoring form he should’ve played.Good to see Dembele start but that was at the expense of that second striker.

Seriously? How closely do you follow the team. Seems you want a player to play who has seemingly torn his hamstring and is likely to be out for a while. If he's fit he'd obviously be involved. Why would you think Critchley would leave him out otherwise?.

 

[no9]

Seriously? How closely do you follow the team. Seems you want a player to play who has seemingly torn his hamstring and is likely to be out for a while. If he's fit he'd obviously be involved. Why would you think Critchley would leave him out otherwise?.

Rumour could be true, hopefully not

 

[tangerinespud]

Our missing players were definitely missed. Dougall’s bite in midfield may have not allowed Sheehan the freedom of the park.
Lavery’s movement would have troubled their back line, & in particular may have made the ref
step in & act about Santos’ constant “obstructions”.
Perhaps the biggest miss is the failure to sign a left footed centre half in the summer …

 

[Ormergod]

Seriously? How closely do you follow the team. Seems you want a player to play who has seemingly torn his hamstring and is likely to be out for a while. If he's fit he'd obviously be involved. Why would you think Critchley would leave him out otherwise?.

I didn’t know he was injured that’s why I asked why no Lavery today

 

[Bamber]

Our missing players were definitely missed. Dougall’s bite in midfield may have not allowed Sheehan the freedom of the park.
Lavery’s movement would have troubled their back line, & in particular may have made the ref
step in & act about Santos’ constant “obstructions”.
Perhaps the biggest miss is the failure to sign a left footed centre half in the summer …

We won't find a better one than Hubby in league one.

 

[tangerinespud]

He has no competition for his spot though & it’s shown in several recent games.

 

[20togo]

you said he should have played. If he's not in the squad it's pretty obvious that he must be injured. Sorry, but i just don't understand how you can't realise that. Anyway,apparently he's injured and may be out for a while.

 

[Blackpool_Gaz]

.

Yes today not a single shot on target so presume we were playing for a 0-0 draw how sad

Over 4k Pool fans there and Crithley's team couldn't even give them one shot on target. Pathetic.

 

[TangerineBayern]

Their no 8 absolutely ran the whole show. Looked for the ball and continually played it forward to one of their players. Tidy player and exactly what we are crying out for.
I hope Sadler was watching, it just strengthened our case to get Moxon in as soon after midnight on New Year's Eve by the bucketful.

Fully agree their No.8 was outstanding today never stopped looking for the ball and carrying it forward, he was the difference together with Santos!

 

[tangysider]

I understand that . Just don't want us to get caught in waiting for tomorrow and it never comes. There will be new challenges and new teams next season and it could be even harder. We are in L1 and I think we should be doing better. You probably feel the same.

Not sure there is any evidence of us building when so many players are out of contract in summer.

 

[Ormergod]

you said he should have played. If he's not in the squad it's pretty obvious that he must be injured. Sorry, but i just don't understand how you can't realise that. Anyway,apparently he's injured and may be out for a while.

right im sorry

 

[tangysider]

You’ve mostly covered my thoughts here.

I thought it was a tense game where neither team wanted to lose. I said it will privately go 1-0 Bolton just before kick off. Wanderers deserve to be where they are because they can keep teams out, manage possession when they need to and score decent goals from nothing. That’s what they did today. In other home games they’ve won quite convincingly.

They were definitely worried about us but we undercooked some of our short passes and final balls which came from their unforced errors.

We aren’t experienced enough since our reboot to get the consistency we’d like to see. But I’m more hopeful than not that we’ll continue to build towards something better than this. Football rebuilds take time and the top three teams in the division are a good indication of that.

A lot of the players have been here more than 1 season, and as for rebuilding more than half are out of contract soon.
Oxford were nowhere last season
Bolton relying mainly on free transfers and loans since they almost went under.
No youth are coming through though Apter is getting rave reviews elsewhere, so in essence I do not see evidence of building the team, the infrastructure is improving though.

 

[Marcusbeansontoast]

I thought Carey and Dembele carried the ball well first half but then had nobody to pass it to. Too often we’re too slow on the counter-attack and take the sting out the game on purpose and the moments gone, pass it round a bit then give them the ball back

 

[Seainsea]

The game, like most football matches, was decided in the midfield. Their numbers 8 & 19 looked after the ball well and mostly looked to go forward. We had Morgan & Carey who were anonymous and Norburn who doesn’t have an attacking pass in him. Missed Dougall in there today.

Bolton weren’t great just well organised, we weren’t awful but gave possession away too easily too often, one of which led to the goal.

Agree we missed Dougall. I know he's been out for a few weeks but Norburn often takes the easy way out and doesn't drive the team forward from midfield. I don't think we're far away from being a good team and challenging for the play-offs.

 

[Wanderlust]

Wind up surely

It wasn't a wind up. You have a good team that for long periods was winning everything in midfield and prevented us from getting going until well into the second half - by which time you'd hit the post and had a couple of very decent chances. From my perspective, you just need a few tweaks and maybe a couple of players (January?) Plenty to be positive about.

 

[no9]

Their no 8 absolutely ran the whole show. Looked for the ball and continually played it forward to one of their players. Tidy player and exactly what we are crying out for.
I hope Sadler was watching, it just strengthened our case to get Moxon in as soon after midnight on New Year's Eve by the bucketful.

Agree, 8, 19, 10, 4 and the big centre half all quicker and stronger than our boys.

We just don’t seem to have the pace or power to really drive forward.

 

[BFC_BFC_BFC]

It wasn't a wind up. You have a good team that for long periods was winning everything in midfield and prevented us from getting going until well into the second half - by which time you'd hit the post and had a couple of very decent chances. From my perspective, you just need a few tweaks and maybe a couple of players (January?) Plenty to be positive about.

You’ll not get any sense or balance out of most of the knobs on this forum. They’re so entrenched in their own ‘anti-Critchley’ agendas they have lost all sense of perspective.

Personally I think we’re in a situation not dissimilar to where Bolton were last year.. possibly a bit further along if anything.

I can see us ending the season strongly and seriously mounting a challenge second half of the season. I’d expect to strengthen in January.

Decent game of football yesterday in my opinion…

 

[Graves]

A lot of the players have been here more than 1 season, and as for rebuilding more than half are out of contract soon.
Oxford were nowhere last season
Bolton relying mainly on free transfers and loans since they almost went under.
No youth are coming through though Apter is getting rave reviews elsewhere, so in essence I do not see evidence of building the team, the infrastructure is improving though.

I see your points Tangy. It depends which way things go and January will be important for us to add some match winners.

What I see is that Bolton have had many years of experience at this level and have rebuilt the hard way but they are now looking the better for it.

I do wonder if the more senior, newer players like Norburn, Casey, Pennington and perhaps Rhodes (if we can convince and his parent club him to stay in tangerine) will become our new spine and we build around them with gambles that may or may not pay off in time. Youth wise, we’ve not been successful for a while in bringing successful academy players through to the first team. The plan was, to push our own to come through with Critchley the first time round, but of course, his exit meant that this may have stumbled.

I’m happy our infrastructure is improving- in the long run that will attract better players. Under Oyston, we were never going to get that. He simply got lucky with Holloway and the players at that time and always did things on the cheap and spent the bare minimum on the ground, the pitch, the facilities... I might take being a bit more patient with on the pitch matters as long as the long term plan is to rebuild for a better future. The world of football becomes even more competitive and is money mad.

Meanwhile, I’m glad to see Apter is doing well, and, while I would like to see what he can do with us, I wouldn’t be against him playing there til the end of the season so that he gets regular starts and valuable experience.

 

[BFCfan33]

It wasn't a wind up. You have a good team that for long periods was winning everything in midfield and prevented us from getting going until well into the second half - by which time you'd hit the post and had a couple of very decent chances. From my perspective, you just need a few tweaks and maybe a couple of players (January?) Plenty to be positive about.

It takes another teams supporter to actually speak a little bit of sense about how things went and what is required going forward -pity ours's don't see it,
Wanderlust - People on here just put things on to wind each other up so i wouldn't take much notice its quite funny when you see some views so enjoy