Are we going down?

Our home form's poor our away form's dreadful, we can't score goals and now we can't defend. Lennon's selections have become somewhat erratic and we're not getting any money at all to boost the squad.

I'm normally optimistic when it comes to Bolton (genuinely), but this season is beginning to feel desperate to me. Short of Eddie panicking into spending a bit I just can't see where we're going to turn this around. All is not lost but things only seem to be going one way right now.

The signs have been encouraging, this shitty little trolling attempt should have come 12 months ago under freedman.

We're bottom of the league, it's not trolling to think about the possibility of relegation. Instead of crying about it why don't you try and form an opinion on something for once?

In regards to encouraging signs, we're certainly playing better than we were under Freedman but in a sense I find that more worrying. At least under Dougie we could take comfort knowing some of the players weren't playing to their full potential, I don't have that feeling now particularly from the likes of Feeney, Danns, Madine and Dervite.

I'm normally optimistic when it comes to the wanderers also buy my optimism is fast beginning to run out of I'm honest. We are creating a few chances but you get the feeling we could play a game for 500 minutes and create 700 chances and still not be able to score. Because our defence is so unreliable and vulnerable you never really feel we can count on a clean sheet either. Even when we score 3 goals away from home we can't get a point. I do feel we will avoid relegation as there are a few worse teams in this league than us but I must admit I am getting a little worried with our lack of positive results.

I don't feel that we will go down although it will be pretty much the same as last season and we will be bumming around just outside relegation and just scrape by.

I think 2 home games this week, despite being very early still in the season, are key. I don't care about positives we can take from the game, good performances, signs for optimism, I want cold hard points, 4 of them minimum. We end up with 0, and our failure becomes a habit, a self fulfilling prophecy, and it starts to become a psychological issue as well as a talent issue, as there will be more and more threads like this, and people thinking it even if not saying it. Answering the question, were I to be forced to make a bet, right now I'd say yes, we are going down (please please prove me wrong)

No we aren't going down. Once we loan a striker and play some of the 'lesser' teams out fortunes will change.

BoltonTillIDie wrote:No we aren't going down.  Once we loan a striker and play some of the 'lesser' teams out fortunes will change.

There's no way, on our budget, we are going to sign a striker that will get into double figures. If you are pinning your hopes on that I think you're going to be disappointed.

Bwfc1958 wrote:

BoltonTillIDie wrote:No we aren't going down.  Once we loan a striker and play some of the 'lesser' teams out fortunes will change.

There's no way, on our budget, we are going to sign a striker that will get into double figures. If you are pinning your hopes on that I think you're going to be disappointed.

I'm also "pinning" my hopes on us getting better results against the lesser teams...

We don't necessarily need a striker that will get double figures, we just need one that can hit the back of the net a few times.

I would say yes at this moment in time (and not just because you are bottom) because from what I've seen so far (early days mind) Rotherham are the only poorer side than Bolton.

Having said that though your home form isn't too bad when you take into account the sides that you have played.

It will be close either way.

Putting this into context we have played the following teams:

Derby - Drew
Middlesbrough - Lost
MK Dons - Lost
Nottingham Forest - Drew
Blackburn - Drew
Wolves - Won
Sheffield Wednesday - Drew
Huddersfield - Lost
Brighton - Drew
QPR - Lost
Burnley - Lost

So apart from the MK Dons and the Huddersfield ones I don't think we expected to win any of the others, or if we did we at least drew them...

Logically, you are completely right btid. But football (most sport) is also emotional, being bottom of a league provokes a reaction, either an acceptance of that being the rightful place given resources, or a burning desire to change it. Yes, we have played some of the "better" teams in the league so getting fewer points can be explained...but what about the Bolton of old when against the top teams we over performed (lightening strikes twice anyone?), and our problem was putting away lesser ones? We are sufficiently far in the season to make some generalisations about us, no matter who the opposition we have so far met.

i think it's 50/50 at the moment, we can't seem to get the balance right. We couldn't score early in the season but looked fairly solid now its the other way round. And Lennon can't decide on his best team and is starting to chop and change a lot, can anyone say they were happy to see Prince on the bench on Saturday?

Our home form is crucial and we need to pick up at least 4 points from the next 2 games but that will only paper over the cracks - it's going to be a long hard season and if we avoid relegation it will be classed as a success.

No.  But only because there are worse teams than us in the division....i.e. Rotherham, Preston, Bristol City etc... over the full course of the season we will end up a few points better off than those teams. So we should scrape through again IMO.
We are in dire need of this thing to be sold and Garty and his cronies to be removed ASAP.

Copper Dragon wrote:I would say yes at this moment in time (and not just because you are bottom) because from what I've seen so far (early days mind) Rotherham are the only poorer side than Bolton.

Having said that though your home form isn't too bad when you take into account the sides that you have played.

It will be close either way.

We outplayed you on Saturday, shut up

We had a thread about this before the season started and the general consensus - apart from the usual suspects who were talking about the playoffs - was that we should just about survive. An opinion that I still agree with. There were a few comments made when I suggested that Lennon's target for the season had to be survival but it's starting to ring true now. I still believe we will survive, but that is still a long way from being a done deal however it is perhaps a good thing that we hit the bottom so early in the season as it is a wake up call and there's time to make changes.
Up until now, I felt as though Lennon was walking into trouble oblivious to the danger (if his media comments about performances are anything to go by) Well he's awake now so we'll find out if the man really can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear as his public image and resultant broad appeal suggest he can.

NO

still chairman of the local debating club Johnny? 

Norpig wrote:still chairman of the local debating club Johnny? 

Maybe