Sunderland 1-0 Bolton

Ian Evatt has named an unchanged starting eleven to face [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] this afternoon.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] makes his return to the matchday squad and takes a place on the bench.[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

— Bolton Wanderers (@OfficialBWFC) [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

After the performance against Rotherham it's ridiculous to keep the same team.

Evans out.

I would have started John over Gordon for this one,

Me too, I'd also have brought Baptiste back.

Lee, John and Baptist would all be in for me.
At that I would have said we can take all the points.
As is, it's hard to predict.

I'm gonna buck the trend though and say that any team can have an off day. Very rare that a team wins all their matches. So why not Bolton to come along after a disappointing result last week and beat Sunderland.
Let's go 2-1 to Bolton.

Gordon worries me though.  Hopefully the manager has done kind of plan for how to handle this one.

Not a bad performance - similar to last week in some respects.
We are a couple of tweaks away from being a promotion team in this division....although not sure exactly what the tweaks might be at this point. All the players are putting in a full shift and playing up to their ability as far as I can tell. 
Still playing the ball back to the keeper far to often for my liking which almost cost us today. 

Onwards to the next game.

Decent performance second half, we dominated for the most part. But once again our main striker fluffed his lines. He needs to be dropped, could Kachunga be any worse in front of goal?

Doyle is not the answer to our poor form in front of goal, if Evatt has one fault it would be not recognising we needed a proper goal scorer

From listening to the game it didn't sound like there was much in it and we dominated second half but couldn't finish. We deserved a draw really but we either score a bagful or can't score to save our lives.

We desperately need another striker in January to challenge Doyle.

Doyle regularly gets in good positions to score and takes a fair percentage of them....no one else does.

Agree with Okocha, easy to blame Doyle and I’m sure he’s disappointed not to score today but good strikers don’t grow on trees, he’s no world beater but he’ll get 15-20 this season I’d imagine and that’s not a bad return. He deserves more credit than he’s getting here.

I wish Doyle was a tiny bit better but can't really complain about his input or his return. For the number of chances he gets his conversion rate is similar to Kane and Sterling and many others.

Plenty of possession, plenty of ball out wide but we don't get enough bodies in the box compared to the top teams so perhaps it's the system we play or the quality of our players that is the issue?
I think Doyle would thrive alongside a big striker but playing two up top would cost us elsewhere.

What I don't really understand is why we've started the season with two squad places unutilised, knowing we are a striker down and only have one fit one in Doyle?

We did the same thing last season with only having one keeper in Crellin - that didn't end well did it?

OK, availability and money comes into it but I'm sure he could have got cover if he really asked for it - and it isn't doing Doyle at 33 years old many favours carrying the strikers role alone, twice a week, until Bakayoko returns (and let us not forget that Bakayoko scored just four times in the last 37 league games whilst at his last club, Coventry!).

I just don't understand why he seems to take risks if he doesn't really need to?

Two upfront could be worth a try in my mind.  Also I find a lot of our so called chances are only half chances - not clear cut.  
Doyle is not the issue.  Maybe when bako comes back we can try two up ? 
I believe 15 shots today but only 4 on target - and similar last week....that's a bigger part of the issue rather than Doyle.

That was a good tight game, I was impressed with the way you killed the space in midfield, which made it difficult for our passing game to fully develop. Both side missed chances, one each in particular. You will be ok in this division and remember that two promotions in a row is very rare, so stick with it and next season you will have a good chance to go up. 

Good luck and I will pop in the week before the return game to catch up with you.

okocha wrote:Doyle regularly gets in good positions to score and takes a fair percentage of them....no one else does.

This is a nonsense excuse.

He's the lone centre forward, who else is supposed to be on the end of chances? The right back?