Bournemouth 3-0 Bolton

JAH wrote:Old Doogie left us some corking players! The second half of this season has really highlighted what a truly terrible appointment Freedman was. I'm hard pushed to think of any signing he made that was good. I suppose Lonners is good back up, but he was overshadowed by Amos. Roll on the Summer and to see if Lennon really is all that!

Bang on mate, except lonners was signed by Coyle!!

finlaymcdanger wrote:

Breadman wrote:I'd try and find a roll for Ream in front of the back four as an Ersatz Campo because he can actually pick a pass.

And he has a half decent RBI rating.

Again, agreed. When we signed him, a couple of yankee-doodle 'soccer' fans I know said he could play a bit - great passer of the ball - but not much of a defender. I'd imagine that would be the perfect place for him in the right system.

4-1-2-3.

Three new defenders plus Baptiste.

Ream spraying it round like Ivan.

Vela and Pratley running the midfield..

Alf (mortgage the farm!), Clough and Woolery (Yeah, I saw 2 minutes tonight and he's got "it".)

And it all clicks.

League won by about the tenth of April, Lennon is God, we go up, Gartside masturbates himself to death, Eddie panics because his stooge / buffer against the Revenue has suddenly gone and he might now be up for a bit of stiff investigation, club gets sold on the cheap, new owners pledge £20 Million, we sign half of Burnley's squad (the good ones) and stay up!

Champions League success in about five years thanks to our new Polish backers.

Simple game football.......

My own whipping boy is Heskey .....I just don't get it.  He's another SKD but without the effort or the occasional goal. Tonight he never even attempted to make a tackle or chase a guy who just took the ball off him. Lennon likes him and he's looking to have another season..... got me baffled.
We just seem to be totally outpaced in the middle...other teams move the ball faster etc....I can't quite put my finger on it.....that's Neils job I suppose.

it's become clear that we cant play 352 thats for sure, we need some decent full backs and at least one centre half. I agree with Breaders about Ream, he would be great in the Campo role in front of the back 4.

Dervite was awful, as he has been for months and Feeney and Walker are not wing backs. Thank god the season is nearly over 

rammywhite wrote:How things have changed. 5 years ago we'd have looked at this game and predicted that we would hammer them.
Now it looks like we have no chance and they'll wipe the floor with us.
How far have we fallen in just a short time.

I think that half the problem is that a lot of our fans still have the expectations we had 5 years ago. The cutbacks we've had to make are real and it will inevitably show on the pitch so decent teams who don't need big name players (including Bournemouth, Brentford and the like) are going to be a serious challenge and it's likely to be even harder next season as the cutbacks continue.

The other half of the problem is that whilst Lennon may have the potential to pull off an unlikely miracle in the transfer market in the summer - it's now almost expected, despite being highly unlikely.

Heskey was the least of our problems last night. 

Honestly most of the problems were Lennons doing with his obsession with the 3-5-2. 

Might work with the right players but walker isn't a defender and is learning on the fly. Feeney is one dimensional. Asking him to defend is ridiculous. Dervite is terrible and purposely got himself sent off so he could start his holiday early. 

Ream was fouled over and over again but that guy they had up front. 

Midfield was terrible. Le fondre and bannan have a bit of quality about them. 

Mark Davies was anonymous.

I don't think that argument holds up WL, because we were played off the park by a team full of players from the lower leagues. We don't need to see decent signings, we need to see decent results. If EH can get Bournmouth playing as a unit, we have to hope that NL can do that with us.

JAH wrote:I don't think that argument holds up WL, because we were played off the park by a team full of players from the lower leagues. We don't need to see decent signings, we need to see decent results. If EH can get Bournmouth playing as a unit, we have to hope that NL can do that with us.

The fact you don't know who Ritchie, Arter, Wilson, Pugh and Smith are doesn't mean they're not top quality for this division. Every single one of that side would walk into the Bolton team and I fancy them to make the step up next season.

I've liked Wilson since his time at Cov, sort of striker we need to take a punt on in this division but we can't even afford the couple of million he cost Bournemouth.

Eddie Howe's done a fantastic job both on the pitch and off it in terms of recruitment. But they've had big investment from the Russian owner and it shows with the quality they've brought. To dismiss them as lower league players is laughable.

They're obviously a good team with good players otherwise they wouldn't be going up.

they also just absolutely embarrassed us. Frankly we looked like a team destined for league one.

If that was our first team I'd agree, but the injury list is a joke. Once we have the likes of Vela, Pratley, Clough, Clayton and Wheater fit it's a different team. I even thought we missed Mills last night.

I agree with Vela Clayton and Clough - though all have still got a lot of growing to do.

Pratley had a great run hope he can come back the same player, Wheater and Mills I don't rate at all personally.

the lack of pace on show from our back four last night was alarming and those 2 are donkeys in that respect too, positionally Wheater is better than anyone else we have I think but he's not great.

Something isn't right with all these injuries and our medical team needs looking into and a new one bringing in if necessary.

People can bang on about the state of the team but I don't think anyone disagrees the vast majority of the players aren't good enough - not helped by another manager who wants to fit square pegs into round holes.

However, the major problem within this team is spirit. There isn't any. As soon as the first goal went in every single one of us knew we'd be lucky to avoid a spanking. There's no heart in the team, no one gives a shite, there's not a single leader on that pitch.

Lennon's priority this season is to find a captain. If he doesn't we will be just as soft as we were last night regardless of who plays.

I still think it's more about quality than spirit. 

apart from Dervite they are all giving it their "all" they do play for Lennon but if he keeps playing 3-5-2 we're more likely to be relegated than promoted.

+ our "stars" are injury prone, Davies, Vela, Clough, Clayton, Walker - You might call that our team of the "future" and almost all of them are injury prone or have had serious long term injuries.

I rate Wheater when he's fully fit, the problem is he gets a lot of injuries and it takes him ages to get back up to speed so we rarely see him at his best.

Mills I don't rate at all, but I'd still prefer him over Moxey or Dervite.

Hipster_Nebula wrote:I still think it's more about quality than spirit. 

Maybe, if you're in a position to go out and buy 11 quality players, but at best we might get 2 in this Summer. So something else has to carry you through, and if you're got spirit and heart you always have half a chance.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Hipster_Nebula wrote:I still think it's more about quality than spirit. 

Maybe, if you're in a position to go out and buy 11 quality players, but at best we might get 2 in this Summer. So something else has to carry you through, and if you're got spirit and heart you always have half a chance.

When Lennon first came in it looked like he'd managed to get a bit of passion into the players, the first few performances were full of energy and hard work. But for whatever reason that seems to have completely dropped off now.

bwfc1874 wrote:

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Hipster_Nebula wrote:I still think it's more about quality than spirit. 

Maybe, if you're in a position to go out and buy 11 quality players, but at best we might get 2 in this Summer. So something else has to carry you through, and if you're got spirit and heart you always have half a chance.

When Lennon first came in it looked like he'd managed to get a bit of passion into the players, the first few performances were full of energy and hard work. But for whatever reason that seems to have completely dropped off now.

Perhaps he's told most of them they can fuck off in the summer???

Potentially, but considering he's said we have no money to spend and he needs to make cuts in summer I doubt it. The squads not exactly huge so like it or not we're going to have to keep a lot of the current crop.

As I've said before the likes of Danns, Feeney and Mills would be fine as back up but relying on them week in, week out is just not going to get us anywhere.