Bolton 6-0 Sunderland

Toughie this one. Sunderland are second in the league but they've stuttered a bit recently with 2 wins 2 draws and an unlikely home defeat by Lincoln (after Winchester was sent off) in their last 5 games.
For them it's a must win as Rotherham are on their tails just a point behind and with a game in hand and they are a talented team.
Probably stick with their 4231 formation.

For us there's talk of Evatt changing the system again but I'd personally be surprised if he does. The only way I can see Bodvarsson starting ahead of Baka is if he's been excellent in training because he clearly hadn't sorted out his positioning in his run out at the weekend - but that will come with time hopefully.

I'm expecting a tight, feisty game and TBH a draw wouldn't be a bad result against this lot at this stage but I'm going for 1 nil.

Not sure which team will get the 1 though

I think I agree on that Lusty, a point wouldn’t be a bad result but if we are to make a late run at the top six, only a win is acceptable. It’s not just the 3 points but also the confidence it would generate from continuing our recent run. Like you I expect IE to stick to the same starting eleven and probably also the same bench and eventual substitutions. The only potential change to that might be Dapo starting in place of Baka because he did well against Sunderland last time out. I’m going to be slightly more positive and go for 2-1 to Wanderers.

A late run to the top 6? Not the first time I've heard this nonsense.

Some of you need to wake up. One good win (Ipswich) and one lucky win (Shrewsbury) does not make a promotion bid.

I suspect some of you will get the wake up call you need this weekend.

0-4.

Not looking forward to this game for 2 reasons. I can't see us getting anything out of this and it will be the first home game since my friend died (his funeral is on Friday). It will be an unusual experience him not being sat behind me 

Just thought I would pop in to see how you are feeling about this game and how your season has gone so far.

From our end we are starting to get players back, couple of weeks ago we had 9 of the first team squad out injured or down with Covid, we took choice to keep playing games to avoid getting into a position of playing two games a week and this resulted in a dip game n form. Having said that it is currently 1 defeat in 14, so it’s not that bad.

We have brought 4 new faces in so far Hume a young lad from Ireland, one for the future I think, Batth who looked very good on his first game last week, a big strong experienced centre back, which we needed, Roberts from Man City, who appears to be very talented player who cost £12m only three years ago but appears to have fallen away, so a rescue job, a bit like Pritchard was, then there is Jake Clarke from Spurs who I don’t know a lot about.

There are lots of rumours about Defoe returning as well.

We are at that stage of the season when every game is must win, so we will not be siting back for a draw. We have played some very nice counter attacking football getting defence to shots on target very quickly.

However we tend to be vulnerable when we have a corner, we have shipped a good few goals from break aways from our own corners.

Safcinpeace wrote:Just thought I would pop in to see how you are feeling about this game and how your season has gone so far.

From our end we are starting to get players back, couple of weeks ago we had 9 of the first team squad out injured or down with Covid, we took choice to keep playing games to avoid getting into a position of playing two games a week and this resulted in a dip game n form. Having said that it is currently 1 defeat in 14, so it’s not that bad.

We have brought 4 new faces in so far Hume a young lad from Ireland, one for the future I think, Batth who looked very good on his first game last week, a big strong experienced centre back, which we needed, Roberts from Man City, who appears to be very talented player who cost £12m only three years ago but appears to have fallen away, so a rescue job, a bit like Pritchard was, then there is Jake Clarke from Spurs who I don’t know a lot about.

There are lots of rumours about Defoe returning as well.

We are at that stage of the season when every game is must win, so we will not be siting back for a draw. We have played some very nice counter attacking football getting defence to shots on target very quickly.

However we tend to be vulnerable when we have a corner, we have shipped a good few goals from break aways from our own corners.

You'll be fine mate - I think we've scored one goal from a set piece all season.
Plus it's not our style.

We've also struggled with injuries and Covid and given that we are newly-promoted and skint we haven't had much to fall back on so we fell from mid table looking up to lower end looking down.

In this window we've signed a few players and have changed the system to suit which has resulted in a couple of wins - a decent home win and a narrow away win.

Some of our players are on the smaller side so can get bullied, but they try to play "beautiful football" however the new system is likely to give you a fair bit of possession so it will come down to quality and you have a fair bit of that.

For us, a draw would be a decent result at this stage of our redevelopment - but we'll be playing for the win.

wanderlust wrote:

Safcinpeace wrote:However we tend to be vulnerable when we have a corner, we have shipped a good few goals from break aways from our own corners.

You'll be fine mate - I think we've scored one goal from a set piece all season.
Plus it's not our style.

He's saying when Sunderland has a corner - not us taking a corner!

Hi Safc, we've been dreadful for months and the manager has only just realised that!

In the last two games we seem to have at last tightened up the defence but even then we only won our last game with a wonder goal with more or less the last kick of the match!

I'll be happy not to lose but we can create chances and we've just bought a striker who can score goals, so as optimistically as I always am, I am looking to send you home with no points at all!

(By means of a last minute breakaway winner from one of your corners - of course!)

Sunderland bringing 6k + fans apparently - should be a good atmosphere.

It's absolutely rocking here at the Unibol.
Sunderland have packed the away end, top and bottom and are in great voice.
Teams about to emerge.
To expect anything but a defeat here today is naive.
I'm afraid I have to go for the loss.

Had a chat with Evatt earlier though, he said to expect a couple of surprises from the players today. Apparently worked on a couple of things. See what happens. 

In Evatt we trust.

Bolton plwying well. Trafford distribution is poor so far.

Dion!

Never in doubt!

WTF! Now 2 up!!!

A cracking first half!

Now 3 up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!