FT: Bolton 5-2 Reading

Having won only 1 game in 5, will the backroom shuffle start things going again and help us to start our winning ways again?

Wanderers fans will turn up at the Toughsheet Stadium looking for the answers Ian Evatt felt unable to supply last weekend, and solid proof that a slow start to the season is not symptomatic of what is to come.

Whether the manager’s stock has fallen to unrecoverable levels over the last five games is still up for debate, as is the timeframe for which the club’s underperformance should be judged.

But for 18 players and a technical area full of staff on Saturday there will be a 90-minute public interview that they can ill-afford to fluff.

Reading come to Bolton with bigger problems. Their seven-year decline under owner Dai Yongge appeared to be completed until recently when a takeover by ex-Wycombe chief Rob Couhig collapsed.

Promises have been made that the club will be sold and that funding is available to continue the business as normal but for the fans who have galvanised impressively around manager Ruben Selles and his young squad, these are the latest worrying times in a bleak chapter for the Royals.

Indeed, Reading may feel they travel to the North West with a chance of capitalising on some vulnerability. Wanderers have not scored a goal at home this season and face intense pressure to show something of the improvement Evatt pledged when he brought in eight new signings this summer, adding to a squad that had only missed out on automatic promotion by a slim margin.

John McAtee, Chris Forino, Scott Arfield, Jay Matete, Luke Southwood, Szabi Schon, Klaidi Lolos and Jordi Osei-Tutu represented an upgrade on the core Whites squad which was only lightly trimmed at the end of last season. This is, by some distance, the deepest and strongest squad that Evatt has worked with in his four years in charge and though injuries have not been kind, the leeway being offered by a frustrated fanbase is minimal.

Emotions were high after the 4-0 hiding against Huddersfield Town last weekend, and so it is perhaps fair not to judge and scrutinise every sentence uttered. Evatt may yet find the answers – and has before – but the margin for error is also decreasing on a weekly basis and the Reading game now feels as though it is being played more on a powder keg than a patch of grass.

Wanderers must find a way to numb the nerves that were so evident in the second half last weekend and, to use George Thomason’s term, “rediscover belief” in a style of football which has relied so heavily on confidence this last few years.

Evatt has often been the one inflating ego – giving his players the bravado and bluster they needed to execute a brand which, when done correctly, is effective and easy on the eye. But when the manager himself looked lost for words, as he most certainly did last weekend, it is difficult not to be concerned.

Many supporters have called for the manager to shift to a more pragmatic approach, to reduce the information burden on his players, but the squad has been assembled to Evatt’s individual design and changing the grand plan seems unlikely in the extreme.

It was hoped that Wanderers could follow Ipswich’s example and play a brand which instantly sits well in the Championship, giving them the best chance to succeed longer-term. Unfortunately, in the same way Oxford United found a way to choke the Whites with their own possession in the play-off final, more opposing sides have been able to counteract, and Evatt’s players have struggled to make the right on-pitch decisions to alter their own destiny.

Evatt has only once lost four league games on the spin, that run coming at the end of 2021 when his injury-ravaged squad, newly promoted to League One, were beaten by Fleetwood, Accrington, Rotherham and Wycombe. His managerial reign kicked-off with five September defeats in a row but also included a couple of cup games.

He once joked that the absence of supporters in the building back in the pandemic days might well have saved his job but now faces a similar test of resolve with 20,000 expectant eyes watching his team’s every move from the terraces.

Wanderers desperately need to produce some evidence that their manager’s plan works and that he can get promotion form out of a squad of players that should surely be doing a lot better.

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I'll not be there, not in protest though. I'm out drinking in the afternoon so will miss Evatt's last game (hopefully) and has been planned for a while now. After last weeks toxic atmosphere i'm not too fussed about not being there.

Lots of talk of fans boycotting the game so will be interesting to see how many actually turn up.

Norpig wrote:I'll not be there, not in protest though. I'm out drinking in the afternoon so will miss Evatt's last game (hopefully) and has been planned for a while now. After last weeks toxic atmosphere i'm not too fussed about not being there.

Lots of talk of fans boycotting the game so will be interesting to see how many actually turn up.

Enjoy your day. Hopefully security will keep you away from the record player.

Record player? Christ, how old am I?

Record player? I thought the Gramophone was more your style Bonce!

boltonbonce wrote:
Enjoy your day. Hopefully security will keep you away from the record player.

Record player? Christ, how old am I?

Pubs don't have jukeboxes now which is a shame as i always loved to pick the most obscure stuff and inflict it on the rest of the pub 

We will win 1-0 scrappy. 

Evatt will be out giving it the big one in the press.

He sounds like a total fool after his little meltdown in the press. 

We’ve been battered before so him throwing his toys out isn’t a sign of a good mentality.

Change of captain at long last!

Looks to me as 3-5-2 also.

Thank fuck Santos has been dropped from his captaincy!!!

We’re now 2 up!!!

Santos removed as captain, confirmed we have dropped Tippy Tappy Mark II and reverted back to 3-5-2 Sheehan back in the side - it's almost as though I knew what I was talking about...

HT Bolton 4-1 Reading.

Now 4-2. I feel that this is a good game. Shame my son is there and not us as we’re in manc for a some food and drinks

FT Bolton 5-2 Reading……Absolutely speechless!…

Great result and a very convincing first half against average opposition. I thought Schon, Thomason, Sheehan and Charles were very good.

Difficult to get excited though... with Plan B seemingly abandoned already (although not entirely to be fair), I'm left wondering what the plan is to get promoted from a much stronger League 1 this season.

Seems to me like we're right back in the same situation as we were at the end of last season.

finlaymcdanger wrote:Great result and a very convincing first half against average opposition. I thought Schon, Thomason, Sheehan and Charles were very good.

Difficult to get excited though... with Plan B seemingly abandoned already (although not entirely to be fair), I'm left wondering what the plan is to get promoted from a much stronger League 1 this season.

Seems to me like we're right back in the same situation as we were at the end of last season.

Ninety minutes away from promotion - and that's a bad situation is it?

Of course there are flaws in the structure of the team Evatt's fashioned but let's no overreact, we were odds on for automatic promotion until Baxter's injury and for my money that unsettled the whole team (chuck in injuries to Charles and Dempsey as well) otherwise we would have gone straight up.

Even being unsettled during that period we still put five past Oxford, who as we know went on to get promoted!

I don't think the 3-5-2 system is anything like as bad as many seem to be making out - ok Oxford taught us a lesson on the day but Evatt should be capable of negating that strategy - Christ just ensuring Santos is not the man to play the ball out from the back, would wreck the game plan immediately - he was seen to be the weak link in this respect.

It is what it is, he doesn't have many options to play any other way really, - the Tippy Tappy Mark II  signings were mostly on the bench today - Collins, Arfield, McAtee - we seem to have an abundance of number 10's now in our squad!

We do have quality players for the level we are at, so no reason to my mind why we couldn't mount a decent promotion challenge.

There's a long way to go yet, other teams will have their bad spells too no doubt.

Evatt needs to stop pissing around at the back and to play the ball into spaces (just to mix it up much more and to become less predictable to play against).

But then again what do I know!




(Although I did predict we would revert back to 3-5-2 and that the captaincy needed to be removed from Santos because he isn't a leader on the pitch)