Fulham v Wanderers 1-1

Not a bad performance on the whole with Cahill looking after Dempsey adequately enough and McCann putting in a solid performance in midfield. Steinsson too held his own on his return. Nice to see that we DO have a player in Klasnic who know that the ball has to go between them two white posts to score.

As ever we just don't know how to go on and win a game when we're one goal up. For me this was a typical game where attack would have been a better form of defence instead of trying to defend the slim lead. But, as I suggested - a gallant performance.

I'm pretty happy with a point at Fulham... always a bad place for us to go.

Credit Megson for making changes... AOB came back in last week - rightly so for Knight - and today he's brought Cohen straight back in. Also Ricketts has had plenty of time to improve his defensive frailties - yet hasnt' - so rightly Steinsson has come in and played well by all accounts.
Again, Megson hasn't shirked his responsibilities by dropping Elmander... even though it's egg on his face for spending so much on him. I just hope we can shift Elmo for some money this January, and reinvest it by buying Klasnic on a permanent deal.

I'd have taken a point beforehand, but have to say the nature of the second half performance has left me with the usual Saturday tea-time downer.
It feels far more like 2 points lost - or more accurately surrendered - than a point gained.
I agree 100% with Haydock's post above - we responded after conceding, which begs the question why the fcuk we had to play the previous 30 minutes camped in our own half.

Interesting (or maybe not) side-point, but most of the players we suspected of being Megson's guilty parties in the 'destablising the club' comments played today.

Far too little far too late. It would be a reasonable result if we were sitting mid-table, but Megson needs to prove he is going to get us enough points to get out of this and our direct competitors moved away from us today. It is not to his credit that all he can do is go back to last years team, we are making no progress, today was an effective admission that everything he did this summer was a total waste of time, add to that the acquisition of Elmander and Muamba and the decline of Taylor and Cahill is looking more and more like a lucky punt. This fool is destroying our club.

I had us getting a 1-1 result.

I was delighted to see Klasnic start and score, same to with Steinsson starting. Steinsson had a really good game and is listed as best player (points-wise) on Sky.

Jussi made some top saves. McCann was solid, as was Cahill.

All in all a good result based on how we normally do at Fulham; however, it doesn't help our situation too much and as such, isn't good enough.

And, what was with the ref and ALL THOSE BOOKINGS!

K. Davies misses our next game due to getting his 5th yellow card.

gald to see davies is gonna be suspended... finally!

- bring on the slating for me!


I think we were pretty rubbish against fulham, fulham didnt get out of neutral never mind first gear during the opening half and it gave us something to build on with a 1 -0 lead. Fulham moved up to first gear for the second half and had the ball for about 90% of the time. Again, we dont know what to do with the ball or how to use it, our midfield is a bit of a mess still in my opinion and kev davies is utterly ineffective on the right wing.

I know the point softens a lot of fans up a bit in their anaylsis of the game but if looked at objectively we were not a team, bitty and scrappy the whole way through.

I feel i need to justify some of my above comments, ok.

Taylor is still not doing it on the left, there is a huge difference in the effectivness in all parts of the game when compared to gardner and samuel on the left. When gardner playes left wing, he and samuel work the ball together really well between them, they take turns bursting forward, they each (more than taylor) take a look and try to use the ball effectivley, they cover eachother well and its one of the most natural partnerships we have in terms of 2 players complimenting eachother.

Davies was out on the right wing for most of the match, he did hardly anything, im not going to blame him though, it was just a poor manegerial decision, it hampered us going forward and although he puts the effort in to track back it isnt done in the same way as most wingers, even attacking minded ones, its not a good balance at all.

Muamba on the bench and mccann in, a few have said he had a solid performance which in some ways he did do but in quite a lot of ways was found lacking, he isnt really good enough to be in a premiership midfield, we shouldnt be settling for mccann unless we have about 10 players out injured.

Cohen has done alright in some games this season but is invisible a lot of the time, if he was coming into a solid established midfield who could carry him part of the time whilst he improves, adjusts then great, but thats not the position we are in right now. he is not consistant or solid enough to command a first team place. we are weak.

getting steinsson in for ricketts is the right move imo but why does megson seem to notice and react only weeks or months after the fans could see the problems? megson has a habit of pushing it right up until he is practically forced or pressured either by te fans or players or dramatic mistakes before he makea a change that everyone but him knew was needed.

I could go on a bit more but ill try not to do. Yes a point against fulham on paper is great, but i dont think it means that megson is afterall good enough to take us forward and do the right things. I think in a way bolton fans are fickle in that they can be slating a manager to death after a bad result and then be thinking he is ok after a different result.

megson could have used the same line up, subs and tactics today and lost. Would that have made him worse than if we got a draw? no! but for some reason people seem to lay off a bit now. he is either a good manager or not a good manager, dont change your mind after every game.

one other thing. if you didnt know the score and were given a full video of the match which had the goals taken out so you didnt know what the end result was, how would you feel the game went.

sometimes that is a fairer way to judge the game. were we good enough?

And what score would you guess it had finished based on what you saw.


(i say this because a manager cant decide weather this shot or that shot went on target or not, he can only pick the team and plan the way we play and decide our style and mentality etc, goals wise any given header could sneak in or shot be deflected wide and so on)
i know what i mean.

Admin wrote:gald to see davies is gonna be suspended... finally!

- bring on the slating for me!


I think we were pretty rubbish against fulham, fulham didnt get out of neutral never mind first gear during the opening half and it gave us something to build on with a 1 -0 lead. Fulham moved up to first gear for the second half and had the ball for about 90% of the time. Again, we dont know what to do with the ball or how to use it, our midfield is a bit of a mess still in my opinion and kev davies is utterly ineffective on the right wing.

I know the point softens a lot of fans up a bit in their anaylsis of the game but if looked at objectively we were not a team, bitty and scrappy the whole way through.

Thing to remember is, we're a lower end Premier League team. We're also currently at a pretty low ebb given a couple of terrible performances, some heavy defeats against tough opposition, and the usual verbal onslaught from our own fans. My point is... we're not going to be playing pretty stuff anytime soon!

However, credit where it's due... we earned a point yesterday for a combative defensive effort against a team that has a very good home record this year. Even Sky (who rarely give us credit) said we were good value for the draw.

It seems commonplace with a lot of Bolton fans to blame Megson when things are wrong, yet credit any points or worthwhile efforts of the team to either luck, fortunate referreeing decisions or the opposition being pants. Megson made a few changes to the line-up yesterday and we saw a huge improvement in the area that has caused us the most problems this year - the defence.

Admin wrote:Taylor is still not doing it on the left, there is a huge difference in the effectivness in all parts of the game when compared to gardner and samuel on the left.

I can see your point about Taylor, but the problem is Taylor scores goals, whereas you could count on the fingers of a leper's hand how many goals Gardner will bag in a season... Megson said as much after the Blackburn game, when he was slagged for bringing Ricky off instead of Taylor.

Admin wrote:getting steinsson in for ricketts is the right move imo but why does megson seem to notice and react only weeks or months after the fans could see the problems? megson has a habit of pushing it right up until he is practically forced or pressured either by te fans or players or dramatic mistakes before he makea a change that everyone but him knew was needed.

Again I don't think that's strictly true. Megson started the season with Ricketts at RB as Steinsson was injured. Now we all know that Ricketts has been very impressive when going forward, but weak at the back. I can totally understand (and even think that it's creditable) Megson being loyal to his players and giving them time to either bed in or prove that they're not that good... he stuck by both Knight and Ricketts for 12 or so games - which it can easily take for players to settle and develop some cohesion with their teammates - it took Anelka 11 games to bag his first Prem goal for us, and you wouldn't dare question his quality!! They have both failed to improve defensively and as such Megson has made the changes. I really, no... really really don't think that Megson gives two hoots what Bolton fans' opinions are let alone that he makes team changes to appease them!

good opinions, mine are better tho. (TOI)

I don't think he cares what we think either, but I do agree with Admin that he makes changes weeks after they are clearly needed and weeks after people have been saying so. It seems to me the team would be better managed by half the people on this board. There is no excuse for Ricketts and Knight, or Robinson for that matter, he bought them and they have been abject failures, that no even one of them is good enough to command a place in the first team is a total disgrace. It is becoming more and more apparent that Cahill was a one off lucky buy and that Megson does not have a clue what he is doing in the transfer market.
There is no question that a point is a reasonable result at a place like Fulham, the problem is that it does not make amends for the fact that we are in the bottom three with the teams directly above us pulling away. Megson is simply not good enough.